DANIEL MARKEY AND JACOB LARSEN From Bad to Worse Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and China–India Relations ABSTRACT Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will have indirect consequences for relations between India and China. In the near term, those consequences appear to be mixed and limited. Over the long term, however, Moscow’s strategic misad- venture threatens Russia’s position as an independent power, a defense supplier to India, and a champion of non-Western diplomatic initiatives that tend to encourage more stable China–India relations. The war will also pro- duce “systemic” effects, including altered global expectations about the prospects for major-power conflict and a resurgence of US-led treaty alliances. In combination, these war-driven outcomes are likely to accelerate the deterioration of China–India relations that was already underway before February 2022. KEYWORDS: Ukraine, India, China, Russia, China-India relations Both China and India have important ties to Russia. In February 2022, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin met at the Beijing Olympics and announced a strategic partnership with “no limits,” marking a new apex in their bilateral relationship, which has improved ever since the end of the Cold War and now includes massive energy and trade links as well as critical defense and security cooperation. For its part, India has maintained vital defense ties to Russia dating from the Cold War era and relies on Russian suppliers for many of its most sophisticated and sensitive assets, from jet fighters and anti-missile DANIEL MARKEY is a Senior Advisor on South Asia at the United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC. He is also a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. Email: <dmarkey@usip. org>. JACOB LARSEN is a Research Analyst with the South Asia Programs, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC. Email: <jacob.larsen98@gmail.com>. Asian Survey, Vol. 62, Number 5-6, pp. 782–810. ISSN 0004-4687, electronic ISSN 1533-838X.  2022 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, https://www.ucpress.edu/journals/reprints-permissions. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2022.1804494. 782 Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/as/article-pdf/62/5-6/782/765169/as.2022.1804494.pdf by guest on 04 December 2022