Beijing: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to hold two bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin on Sunday, as both nations look to strengthen ties amid global trade tensions sparked by US President Donald Trump.
Prime Minister Modi, who will arrive in Tianjin on Saturday evening from Japan, will have a bilateral meeting with President Xi around Sunday noon and a possible second one before the official banquet of the SCO summit, according to sources.
On Monday, the Prime Minister will take part in the SCO Summit and is likely to have a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin before leaving for home.
The summit of the 10-member bloc is regarded as significant and most consequential from the point of view of India-China relations in the current context of a sudden downturn in India-US ties after Trump imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports.
This will be Modi’s first visit to China in seven years, perhaps the most significant.
Though Modi is expected to have bilateral meetings with several leaders, his meeting with Xi will be the most watched one, not simply in India and China but all around the world.
The outcome of the meeting was expected to set the tone for the future course of bilateral relations, which, experts say, looks bright as the two countries faced the brunt of Trump’s tariffs.
Xi and Modi met last year at Kazan on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, which ended over a four-year deadlock or freeze in the bilateral ties over the military tensions in Eastern Ladakh.
Modi and Xi know each other well. Before the Ladakh tensions, they met numerous times in bilateral and multilateral summits, including informal summits, spending quality time to understand each other. Since the Kazan meeting, the two sides have stepped up wide-ranging interactions.
Special Representatives for the boundary issue, NSA Ajit Doval and his counterpart Wang Yi, have held two rounds of talks in the last nine months to set the tone for the normalisation process of the bilateral relations.
This month’s Doval-Wang meeting, which took place in the backdrop of Trump’s tariff tirade against India, has breathed new momentum into the Sino-Indian relations, which had a chequered history in the last seven decades.
The two officials even spoke of an early harvest of the boundary issue, which is rarely heard in the fraught India-China relations.
In this background, the Modi-Xi meeting acquires significance and raises expectations that they may provide a broader roadmap for enhanced ties.
Also, Trump warmed up to Pakistan after Operation Sindoor, hosting an unprecedented luncheon meeting for Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir, opening a new strategic window to Islamabad despite India’s grave concerns related to cross-border terrorism promoted by Pakistan.
Pakistan, a member of the SCO, will also be present at Tianjin as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will be attending the summit.
Modi’s meeting with Putin was expected to draw global attention as Trump singled out India for a tariff hike for buying Russian oil and gas.
For its part, China is trying to make the Tianjin SCO summit the largest by inviting 20 foreign leaders.
On the Modi-Xi meeting, Chinese strategic analysts say the Indian Prime Minister’s attendance at the SCO meeting is important for their bilateral relations and for the summit itself.
Welcoming Modi ahead of his visit to the country for the SCO Summit, China believes that the atmosphere of the summit between PM Modi and President Xi will be quite harmonious, since both of them are friends and know each other well, Zhou Rong, Professor of strategic studies at China’s Renmin University, told PTI.
“They used to have very friendly and sincere meetings for the last 10 years. China hopes that Modi’s coming will encourage the concerted effort of all parties to make the summit of the SCO successful and fruitful,” he said.
Although China and India have started making joint efforts to repair their ties, it makes sense that China would be pragmatic and prudent in handling the relations with India, he said, adding that “we need a good neighbourly relation with India and we need to revitalise the two great civilisations”.
Rong Ying, a senior research fellow at China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), said India’s participation and support for the SCO is crucial, and all the other SCO members welcome PM Modi’s participation.
“China, as a host, is anticipating India to make more contributions and play a constructive role in the SCO. China-India close cooperation and collaboration in regional and global groupings like the SCO has been a major area with great potential,” Rong, also Professor at Sichuan University, told PTI.
The success of the SCO Tianjin summit should be defined by peace, security, and development challenges commonly facing the SCO members, which is going to showcase the significance of the bloc as a new regional grouping different from the traditional ones, Rong said.
