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Mohamed Zeeshan

During his term, US President Joe Biden has expended significant effort and energy on shoring up alliances in Asia and improving Washington’s standing with allies and partners in the region.
Biden has leveraged tensions and territorial disputes between China and its neighbours to revitalise partnerships with countries such as India and the Philippines. He has signed multiple military deals to operationalise those ties. He has also placed these partnerships at the heart of a strategy that seeks to advance “rules that the United States and [its] partners have helped to build”.
Washington sees China as a challenge to this endeavour and it has therefore enlisted China’s neighbours in the effort. But in recent weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin scored major diplomatic triumphs that showed the limits of Biden’s vision for Asia.
In June, Putin went to Vietnam where he was warmly received and given a column in one of the country’s most influential newspapers. He also signed deals to expand cooperation with Vietnam, including in the energy sector.
Earlier this month, Putin received Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Moscow for Modi’s first visit to Russia since the start of the Ukraine war. Modi, who was recently reelected as prime minister for a third term, had chosen Russia for his first bilateral visit after being sworn in. In Moscow, he received Russia’s highest civilian award.
Given their strategic importance to the US, India and Vietnam garnered some criticism from Washington for engaging with Putin amid efforts by the Biden administration to isolate him. The US embassy in Vietnam protested Putin’s visit to that country, asserting that “no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalise his atrocities.”

Modi drew a far subtler rebuke. The US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, “We made quite clear directly with India our concerns about their relationship with Russia”. In New Delhi, US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti seemed to reference India’s ties with Russia at a news conference. “I respect that India likes its strategic autonomy,” Garcetti said. “But in times of conflict, there is no such thing as strategic autonomy.”
At first glance, the two diplomatic visits aren’t perhaps all that surprising. Russia has long been a military supplier to India and Vietnam, dating back to the Cold War. Yet, despite this history, data shows that Russia’s military footprint in the two countries has been weakening for years, even before the war in Ukraine began.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, between 2010 and 2019, Vietnam imported as much as 83 per cent of its arms from Russia. But since 2020, Russia’s share in the Vietnamese market has fallen to only 39 per cent. In India, Russia’s share of total imports has fallen from 65 per cent between 2010 and 2019 to only 36 per cent since 2020. These trends are consistent with Russia’s decline as a military supplier worldwide.
So, why are India and Vietnam unwilling to cut Putin loose, despite Russia’s decline, their own close ties with the US and pressure from Washington? The reason is geopolitical.

Even as Russia’s hard power has waned, its significance has surged. Like many US allies in Asia, India and Vietnam recognise that the fall of Putin’s Russia would render them more vulnerable to US hegemony, especially economically. The dominance of the dollar and other Western economic institutions is of particular concern to many in the Global South. To them, Western sanctions represent the unfair weaponisation of those institutions.
For years, India has been trying to insulate itself from these threats by encouraging trade in the Indian rupee. India’s central bank has allowed some local banks to open special accounts for foreign banks to ease payments between trade partners in rupees. In May, the central bank signalled that non-resident Indians will be allowed to open rupee accounts in other countries.
Russia has been an important partner in this effort. Since the beginning of the war, New Delhi and Moscow have been working on payment alternatives. They have been exploring ways to bypass restrictions on Russia’s use of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) channel for international transactions. In India’s eyes, Russia has become an important bulwark for multipolarity.
US allies in Asia also seem to value Russia as a counterweight to China. Vietnam, for instance, has involved Russia in oil exploration projects in the South China Sea, perhaps in part hoping that Russian presence in the region may temper tensions with China, given Putin’s own ties to Chinese President Xi Jinping.


All of these factors have combined to present a significant strategic problem for the US in Asia. Washington believes that its allies in the Indo-Pacific, like its allies in Europe, will help strengthen Western norms and rules. But to emerging powers like India and Vietnam, Western hegemony is as much of a challenge and a threat as it is a counterweight to China’s growing footprint.
In recent years, the US has been willing to live with these differences and continue arming its allies in Asia, in large part because it believes that the militarisation of China’s neighbours is crucial to upholding the balance of power in the region. But Washington should be more cognisant and wary of the limits of these partnerships.
Mohamed Zeeshan is a foreign affairs columnist based in Washington, DC, and the author of “Flying Blind: India’s Quest for Global Leadership.”


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Diplomacy

Why the US’ ties with its Asian partners have their limits

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Indian national Mohammed Asfan, who was hired by Moscow to fight in Ukraine. The issue of Indians fighting in the conflict is expected to be raised by Modi during his coming visit to Moscow. Photo: AFP

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Opinion

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Despite US efforts to isolate Russia and counter China, countries such as India and Vietnam are keen to keep counterbalances in play


Despite US efforts to isolate Russia and counter China, countries such as India and Vietnam are keen to keep counterbalances in play.


India

US-India relations

Vietnam

Russia

United States

Joe Biden

Joe Biden’s China policy

Vladimir Putin

Narendra Modi

Ukraine war

The Philippines

Defence

US-China relations

China-Russia relations

Hanoi

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Why the US’ ties with its Asian partners have their limits

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Despite US efforts to isolate Russia and counter China, countries such as India and Vietnam are keen to keep counterbalances in play

Despite US efforts to isolate Russia and counter China, countries such as India and Vietnam are keen to keep counterbalances in play