Moscow, April 4 The newly elected president of the Kremlin-backed Russian International Affairs Council has called for maintaining a ‘positive’ balance between Russia’s two Asian strategic partners – India and China.
Dr. Dmitry Trenin, a renowned expert on global affairs, was speaking in his first press interview after being elected to lead the prestigious think tank, the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), on April 1.
“We must promote a positive balance between our strategic partners, China and India, preventing the Americans or anyone else from using India against China and, thereby, even indirectly, against us,” Trenin said in an interview published by the prominent Kommersant daily on Friday.
“Our largest neighbor, China, understandably deserves our closest attention. This needs to be addressed systematically. The same applies, of course, to India, of which we have a positive, albeit still rather superficial, impression,” Trenin said.
Trenin, 70, is a retired Soviet-Russian Army Colonel, who has been involved in US-Russian nuclear and space weapons negotiations. His service included postings both inside and outside the Soviet Union, including a stint as the first non-NATO senior research fellow at the NATO Defence College in Rome.
“We are an autocratic nation: we do not obey anyone and we do not allow the world to crumble,” he said, underlining the thrust of his plans as the president of RIAC at a time he described as turbulent and dramatic.
“My plan as RIAC President is to inject new impetus into this remarkable council and rise to the challenges we face today and those that will arise tomorrow.”
“Despite the apparent chaos and illogicality of what is happening, we shouldn't pretend that nothing like this has ever happened before,” Trenin said.
He joined Carnegie Moscow Centre in 1994 but was fired in 2022 as its director for supporting the Kremlin’s Ukraine campaign.
Asserting that this is not the first time the world has gone through a period of fundamental change, he said, “Previously, it was associated with world wars. Today, we are experiencing something similar to a world war.”
But he said he does not like to use the term 'World War III' because it implies a continuation of what happened in World Wars I and II, and added, “A more accurate phrase is 'a new world war,' distinct from the first two.”
Russia’s RIAC was set up 15 years ago by erstwhile President Dmitry Medvedev’s decree. It is a counterpart of the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA).