My take on the current situation is very different from other members.
We are clearly staring at a new world with newer alliances like the cold war-1 times when we had NATO & WARSAW Pact. The new world order is still to evolve but the weapon to fight will be OIL. China has over 30 year contract for oil supply from Russia. China is the biggest importer of oil. Iran-Iraq-Syria-Russia- Central Asia-Venezuala have more oil with them than OPEC and USA. India is the second largest importer of oil after China. If India joins the group of nations opposed to USA & NATO, the balance will tilt in favour of this alliance. Just the size of oil market between these nations will be worth more than the combined GDP of OPEC. USA companies have imvested large amount of money in OPEC countries. In such a situation, if the oil is flooded in the market resulting in crash of price, it will pinch rest of the world more than it will pinch this alliance led by Russia & China. India is needed to ensure this happens because if India is not part of such an alliance against USA, this alliance will fail as every emeber of this alliance has an oil based economy and USA will impose sanctions on them all.
Few days back someone had posted a thread here about how USSR broke up due to the oil price war started by Saudi Arabia and how Putin has decided to now break apart the Arab world. Western Europe is completely dependednt on oil supply from Russia and I do foresee that if this alliance grows and India joins this alliance, we will see some kind of regrouping of old USSR nations into this new alliance. Putin has many times stated this openly as his vision for old soviet block countries.
Baba Banaras had posted a few things about this offer from China. It appears to me that this offer was conveyed by Russia informally to India recently and the bait used was POK+GB+Aksai Chin. China added another condition of CPEC/BRI in this offer. Who gains and who looses if India does take up this offer?
Russia will come to dominate the world again and more strongly than USSR ever did. China will become undisputed manufacturing hub of the world and will dominate the world affairs with impunity as it will have no rivals in its backyard of Asia and it will more than recover its investments in BRI with domination of Indian market. India will be able to get back all its territories without firing a bullet and will have very peaceful frontiers since 1947. But who emerges the biggest loser in this alliance led by Russia?
India will be the biggest looser. We will become a vassal state of Russia and China. We will get sanctioned by USA & Europe which are our biggest markets. We will lose the markets even in Asia which we are slowly cultivating. We will be just another country with independent policy of its own. We will loose Indo-Pacific to China including IOR & Africa.
The best course of action for us remains the NAM. Equi-distant and Equi-Friendly with both and all groups. Let us not become a sounding board for others or join the fight between others. We need to protect our Independence and our freedom as a nation which does not depend on anyone. Compared to anyother country of the world, India is the only country which will have no effect on its economy in case of sanctions by any allince. We demonstrated that in 1999 when USA had sanctioned us after Shakti-2 explosions. Our economy remained resolute with no effect at all.
IMO Russia would not be so eager to join the Chinese block ( yes this block would be dominated by China despite Russia being a part of it if it chooses so) due to several reasons :
1- They too don't trust Chinese fully due to
sterling of Russian tech done by China. Russians also fear that a militarily strong China may put its claim on resource rich Russian far east in the future. The vehement pushing of national interests by completely regarding the interests of other party by Chinese also makes them unreliable partner.
2- Any such grouping would make Russia a junior partner of China as Chinese have much more economic clout to ensure total domination in that block.
3- Putin's goal of revival of Russian economy and making whole eastern Europe completely dependent on Russian energy may come into jeopardy as US would surely impose sanctions on such a block as speculated by you too and Chinese won't be able to help Russians in any way in both of these matters.
Now sir, I beg to differ from your speculation that some former SovBloc countries may again join this Chinese block. Because most of these countries and all in the case of eastern Europe are democracies and quite enjoying it. They would never chose to throw away all their independence for nothing. Conversely any such bloc would tie them more towards USA since their security concern will increase exponentially.
Hence if Russia chooses to join China it would completely loose eastern Europe and with it it's dream to dominate them through Turkstream project.
4- Russians would also loose their world's biggest defence market India and also other's. Since Chinese also have started manufacturing their own weapons they would surely push their products in their own bloc hence not giving any compensation for Russia.
All in all there is very small possibility of Russia joining or making such a group.
Presently they are only trying to bargain something from west by threatening them from the prospects of such grouping. In all of this the Russian response to G11 invitation is very interesting. They didn't decline the offer but also mentioned China. Clearly indicating that they are ready to jump ships if they get a fair deal. They only want two things from west lifting of all the economic sanctions and full support for Turkstream project.
POTUS knows all this and hence he invited Russia in G11 because he too knows that without Russia a united attack against China is very difficult. I am hopeful USA will offer all the Russia wants to side with them against China and Russia would surely do that.
I apologise for unstructured response.
