Don’t count the Russia-India-China triangle out just yet

The Russia-India-China (RIC) dialogue is back in the diplomatic conversation. It has not formally restarted, and no summit is on the horizon. But the signals are here.

In 2025, Moscow again pushed for reviving the RIC format. India said any meeting would have to be arranged in a “mutually convenient manner”, a cautious but open formula. China said it was willing to maintain communication with Russia and India on trilateral cooperation.

This month, Russian President Vladimir Putin again spoke about Russia’s separate and independent relationships with China and India. Beijing responded that good ties among the three emerging economies serve regional and global stability. That does not mean RIC is coming back as a bloc. It does mean the format deserves more attention than it has received.

RIC’s last foreign minister meeting was held virtually in 2021. At the leaders’ level, it has not been revived since the Group of 20’s summit in 2019, though later informal interactions, for example at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) summit in 2025, show that the triangle still carries political symbolism.

At first glance, today looks like an unlikely moment for revival. China and India are still managing the aftershocks of their border crisis. Russia’s confrontation with the West has reshaped its external environment. The US has tightened Indo-Pacific alliances and partnerships. If the region were simply splitting into two camps, RIC would look like either a weak relic or a signal of anti-Western momentum.

But Asia is not that simple. The region is being pulled by three overlapping forms of multilateralism. One is the US-centred security architecture represented through groupings such as the Quad and Aukus, focused on defence industrial cooperation, critical minerals, technology controls and maritime security partnerships.