Foreign secretary S. Jaishankar will meet his counterparts from Australia and Japan at the fourth India-Japan-Australia trilateral meeting on December 13. This will be close to the time when foreign ministers of China and Russia are expected to be in New Delhi for the Russia-India-China (RIC) meet.
The foreign secretary's trilateral has created a buzz about the new quadrilateral strengthening (Australia-India-Japan-USA), although the US is not part of these talks. The quad, a concept proposed around a decade ago, but not acted upon, had its first talk on the sidelines of the East Asia summit in Manila in mid November, with senior foreign ministry officials of the four countries coming together.
The quadrilateral is still largely a concept with not a formalised entity. The meeting of the officials of the four countries was largely regarded in the international community as a multi-national counter to China's rising unilateral trade and economic aspirations.
The trilateral, scheduled for December, says the ministry of external affairs, is an established one, with three other dialogues having already taken place (the first was in June 2015 in New Delhi, the second on February 26, 2016 in Tokyo and the third in Canberra this April).
“India participates in many pluralistic meetings involving different countries at different levels,'' Raveesh Kumar, the ministry's spokesperson told THE WEEK. “One such meeting is the trilateral meeting at the foreign secretary level between India, Japan and Australia.'' The meeting will discuss matters of “mutual interest” said the spokesperson.
Meanwhile, the RIC meet to be held on December 11 is also significant, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi being the first high level Chinese visit to India since the resolution of the Doklam standoff. The RIC meet has been much delayed; it was scheduled initially for April, but China was unable to confirm dates. It was said China decided to keep away because the Dalai Lama was visiting Arunachal Pradesh. After that, bilateral relations plummeted rather quickly with Doklam. It will also be the first high-level Chinese visit to India after Xi Jingping was elected into his second term in office.
RIC is a three-nation grouping formed in 2002, and meets annually. It is one of the many multilateral groups where India shares space with Russia and China, the others being BRICS and SCO.
