Current Affairs 2022: Russia and China Naval Military Exercise and its Significance to India
By Aman Kumar
A message from Chinese state media at the time was that this naval drill was just an exchange of communications between the two nations.
Joint Sea 2021
Nowadays, everyone wants to be on the safer side in terms of defence and security. Recently, China and Russia came up with a drill exercise to show the world a big collaboration between two superpowers. As stated in Global Times, we can say that it is a new era in the joint exercise. The Joint Military exercise was named ZAPAD/ INTERACTION-2021.
There was a time when the Soviet Union and Chinese were opposite and upfront in terms of their relationship, but as time changed, everything came to normal. The Soviet Union got divided into several countries. Since Russia was the king of the Soviet Union, after the division, it started working on its extensive military power as a defence from neighbouring enemies.
Joint Sea 2021
The recently launched Joint Naval drill was held on October 14, 2021. It was named “Joint Sea 2021”. There are many reasons behind this Naval Drill exercise. One of the biggest reasons speculated by experts is that it was to challenge the US Navy because many times US Naval ships have tried to enter the territorial waters of Russia and China.
A message from Chinese state media at the time was that this naval drill was just an exchange of communications between the two nations. They were also working on Anti-Mine, Anti-Air, and Anti-Submarines operations, joint manoeuvring and firing on seaborne targets.
Significance of Joint Sea 2021 to India
India should keep its eyes on these drills in the future. There were several deals signed during the Russian President's visit to India before this exercise. India and Russia had signed more than two dozen agreements in various sectors and inked a 10-year Defence Cooperation Pact. Firstly, these agreements demonstrate bilateral relationships, and secondly, they demonstrate strong military ties.
Russia has been proposing bilateral relationships with other counties as well and especially with those that are not in cordial relationship with the USA, such as Iran, China, etc. Hence the USA will observe India’s behaviour towards Russia. And it is important to India since it is the biggest importer of Defence products and services from both Russia and the USA.
The USA has opposed the deal of S-400 missiles between India and Russia. On the other hand, Russia is also keen on bilateral relationships with China and other countries that are rivals to India, while, also supporting India in making its military stronger against those countries. This shows that countries like Russia and the USA are only interested in business.
India must focus on bilateral relationships with the Panchseel countries since they are the bordering nations. India should focus on more businesses with these countries and gain their support to defeat China in the war of defence, infrastructure development, etc.