NEW DELHI: Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow earlier this week served the guest and his host (Russian President Vladimir Putin) right. Putin, who’s under pressure and sanctions from the West for the war in Ukraine, signalled he isn’t isolated and has a strong friend (in Xi). The Chinese President, who is now into an unprecedented third term, used the opportunity to cock a snook at Western hegemony. Russia and China may not have had a very friendly past but have now forged a bond against a common enemy—the United States. As the world order gets more fragmented and multipolar, with the emergence of a host of minilateral arrangements, India (that has good ties with both Russia and the United States, and has China as a hostile neighbour) needs to manoeuvre carefully, guided by its national interests, as StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale explains in this episode of ‘Simply Nitin’.
