Wang said trilateral cooperation on the Afghanistan issue contributes to the effort to guarantee that the Central Asian state does not remain an entrenched base for terrorists.

"Previously, China conducted bilateral anti-terrorism drills with India and Russia. But through this platform, more joint training and intelligence sharing aimed at terrorism can be carried out among the three countries," Wang said.

In late October, Beijing surprised the world by receiving Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the same time, a gesture that observers said demonstrated China's reinforced efforts to improve relations with the two neighbors.

Hu Shisheng, director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceanian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the three nations, unsatisfied with the current world order dominated by the West, are seeking to reinforce the emerging countries' global voice.

"However, their joint countermeasures to offset the rein of the US and Europe in security and political fields are only symbolic, since no concrete cooperation has been carried out yet," Hu said.

In fact, the three BRICS countries started considering the necessity of reciprocity and mutual benefit in the 1990s when then-Russian prime minister Yevgeny Maximovich Primakov proposed the concept of a "strategic triangle".

Although the approach generated little enthusiasm at the time, China, Russia and India have begun to recognize the importance of seeking further contacts and cooperation.

The three-way cooperation mechanism represents great potential yet to be tapped, given its loose structure and a lack of concrete achievements, experts said.

Wang, the researcher, said it is time for the mechanism to transcend the current ministerial level, since it has already been in place for more than a decade.

"All three countries have enormous influence in East Asia and South Asia, and global politics and security nowadays is centered on the Asia-Pacific," he said.

Contact the writers at puzhendong@chinadaily.com.cn and mojingxi@chinadaily.com.cn