Guess what guys?
I think the Quad is dead and India has flipped. I understand China/India/Russia has just released a huge joint communique in the last 24 hours consisting of issues that each country is interested in and which all three agreed upon.
Many here are looking too much into this RIC meeting. India
hasn't flipped not even close. The stands taken here are in line with their foreign policy.
Putin is visiting next week so India wouldn't take any adversarial stand in the meeting anyway.
Focus on the specifics of the statement. Each country got what they wanted.
1. India got Afghanistan, Vaccines and Sanctions covered . The statement has subtle indications towards Pakistan/Afg and state sponsored terror. The opposition against sanctions which are in light of the S-400 and CAATSA. And the vaccine part because very few countries are recognizing Covaxin.
2. China got the Olympics support .
3. Russia got the Syrian issue and Unilateral Sanctions covered (which affects both China and Russia).
Infact if you look at the past RIC meetings it always concluded with mutually beneficial statements. That's what the forum has always been about.
We
can consider India to be flipping if it reverses even a single adversarial economic actions taken against China over the last 2 yrs (App ban, FDI ban, Tariffs, 5G ban, Ban on Chinese firms in large projects etc) and its provocative Military actions (just last week Indian CDS called China its biggest Nat Sec threat)
As i unfortunately live in India i get to observe Indian reactions and potential policy maneuvers towards China first hand . As of now India is in no mood for re-conciliation. Infact public sentiment is to go fully into American lap if it results in China getting weakened.