Manmohan Singh greets Hu Jintao (left) as Vladimir Putin looks on. (AFP)

St Petersburg, July 18: It was almost an attempt to dare the world to notice their attempt to influence the international order when the leaders of Russia, China and India decided to meet on the sidelines of the G8 Summit here to forge a common global approach.

An obviously pleased Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described as “very productive” this historic, even if a slightly tentative, attempt.

When President Vladimir Putin, President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met in St Petersburg, they did not take any specific decisions with any immediate consequences. But that should not detract from the potential of the three countries to influence international events or their ability to help stabilise the global order.

“Our trilateral cooperation is not directed against anyone,” foreign secretary Shyam Saran claimed after the meeting. He was probably pre-empting criticism that this could be a challenge to US hegemony in international affairs.

He pointed out that the cooperation between Russia, China and India was the logical outcome of recognition of some commonalities ? they shared a common neighbourhood, had convergent views on several international issues, wanted a multi-polar world, advocated multilateralism and had worked together on energy security and other regional issues.

That the trilateral initiative will take a long time to go beyond economic cooperation and itinerant working together on some international issues is evident. Political issues remain unresolved between India and China and both compete for influence in the same region. Nonetheless, there is potential in the trilateral initiative if it really takes off.

All three countries are nuclear powers, all have superpower ambitions, India and China both have rapidly growing economies and Russia is in the process of revitalising its economy. Russia, one of the largest energy producers, is looking towards Indian and Chinese markets and together the three represent two-thirds of the world’s population. This is as good a basis as any for exploring cooperative functioning internationally.

Prime Minister Singh emphasised trilateral energy co-operation when he told reporters on his way back to New Delhi: “Russia is a big energy producer. It wants predictability of demand for energy. We want predictability of supply.”

Indian officials have said that to begin with, trilateral cooperation would be largely economic in nature. India has announced that it would host the next foreign ministers’ meeting later this year. India also agreed to host a trilateral business summit and suggested that the foreign ministers will focus on developing special mechanisms “to give substance to the desire of the three countries to cooperate”.

Russia has apparently also proposed that Brazil, another developing economy, be also involved to expand the cooperation.

While doubts have been raised about the success of the trilateral initiative because of Sino-Indian problems, India has dismissed such assessments. Its relations with China have entered a new pragmatic phase ? this is evident in the case of Sikkim, trade, increasing exchanges of high level visits and growing trade between the two.

Arguing that bilateral issues ? such as the boundary issue between India and China and the Tibet question ? would not come in the way, the foreign secretary said no bilateral issue would be put on the trilateral agenda. “On some regional issues and global issues, the three countries have remarkably similar views. That is the basis on which we want to promote cooperation.”

Saran denied that there were plans for joint military exercises as a part of their trilateral cooperation initiative.