The Chinese are trying to sweeten the deal by offering India and Pakistan membership of the SCO.The US Senate on June 24 finally approved the Trade Promotion Authority to enable President Barack Obama to finalise the Trans-Pacific Partnerships with 11 nations on the Pacific Rim. They constituted major commodity exporters, i. Brazil, Russia and South Africa, and importers — China as the world’s workshop and India as a potential manufacturing hub. While Russia wants to restore with its erstwhile Asian provinces an economic linkage, China desires overland connectivity via the region to West Asia and Europe. The two organisations have disparate origins. Over time its focus is beginning to shift to economic issues. For instance, the Chinese announcement of a -billion corridor linking the Pakistani port of Gwadar to Xinjiang, passing through Gilgit-Baltistan in Kashmir, is a deliberate provocation considering the sensitivity China displays to the smallest move by India in areas like Arunachal Pradesh that Beijing dubiously claims.Firstly, only the second time after 2009 is the Brics summit being clubbed with that of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second Brics summit, now in Ufa, Russia, on July 8-9, 2015, will take place amidst a changed global situation, economic crises of some members and testy domestic developments compared to his Brazil visit immediately on assuming office.

The British, fearing a Russian advance into those areas, set up the Gilgit Agency in 1877, assuming direct control though not questioning the ownership. The Indian government, when vacating the Valley of intruders in 1947-48 or in the complaint to the United Nations, seemed to focus only on the Valley and Jammu. The SCO originated to stabilise the borders of China and Russia with Central Asian nations, excluding Turkmenistan, and to regulate troop deployment after the Soviet Union collapse. On paper it has an open architecture allowing other nations to join later.Today, however, the reality is different. South Africa was added later for representation from all major continents.Unfortunately, India has since Independence allowed Pakistan to define the Kashmir issue as not including what it originally called Northern Areas and has now re-christened as Gilgit-Baltistan. He tweets at @ambkcsingh. The exclusion of China links it to the US “rebalance” in Asia.Thirdly, though a mutual trust deficit persists, Russia’s proposed Eurasian Economic Union can mesh with China’s “One Belt, One Road”. Like his political skills being tested at home, his diplomatic prowess will be under scrutiny as Brics’ internal balance has been upset by Sino-Russian convergence and the economic weakness of Brazil and South Africa.

Russia, a bridge between Brics and G-7, finds itself barred from that group and sanctioned by the US and Europe over its unilateralism in settling the Ukraine imbroglio. Only India and China are fuelling Asian growth, albeit the former with suspect growth figures and the latter undergoing a perceptible drop in growth momentum. Central Asia, at the centre of the Eurasian land mass, assumes importance as a source for oil and gas. In 1935, they leased them for 60 years, reverting them to the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir’s control two weeks before Indian Independence. China and Russia were permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the other three asp***ts to similar positions in a reformed UNSC. The two factors that will condition the Indian approach to the two summits will be Sino-Indian and Indo-US relations. The British commandant of the Gilgit Scouts then allowed the troops aaa-top rechargeable battery suppliers to raise the Pakistani flag. The planned group will have 40 per cent of global gross domestic product and one third of the world’s trade.The writer is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry. Secondly, both Russia and China have looming stand-offs with the US and its allies, the former over Ukraine and the latter in the South China Sea