Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to attend the 25th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit to be held in Tianjin city of China next week. This will be his first visit to China in seven years and this visit is being seen as an important diplomatic opportunity for India amid changing global equations and regional challenges.
This visit has been scheduled on 31 August and 1 September. This information was given by Foreign Ministry Secretary (West) Tanmay Lal during a special press conference on Tuesday. He said that Prime Minister Modi will attend the summit at the invitation of President Xi Jinping and it is likely that he will also hold some bilateral talks, although their details have not been revealed yet.
Tanmay Lal said, “The Prime Minister will attend the 25th meeting of the SCO in Tianjin. Apart from President Xi and Putin, leaders from Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and South-East Asia will also be present in it.”
This platform will be Modi’s first public appearance with Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin after a year. Earlier, the three leaders were seen together at the BRICS summit in Russia. This time too, there is a discussion in diplomatic circles about whether trilateral talks between India, China and Russia will be possible – about which Russian officials have recently given indications in Delhi.
Sign Of Global South’s Solidarity And Global Power Balance
This summit is being considered a means for China to achieve many strategic objectives. This includes showing the unity of the Global South countries, giving a platform to Russia facing sanctions, and highlighting Beijing’s growing international role.
Eric Olander, editor-in-chief of ‘The China-Global South Project’, told Reuters, “Xi Jinping would like to show through this summit what an international system that is independent of US leadership could be like.” He said, “The discomfort that the BRICS summit has made US President Donald Trump shows the power of such groups.”
Olander also added that the efforts made by the US since January to balance China, Iran, Russia and India have not yielded any concrete results.
India’s attempt: New beginning In Relations With China
This summit is particularly important for India as it is taking place at a time when efforts are underway to improve relations between India and China after the 2020 border clashes. Experts believe that this summit could be an appropriate opportunity to take small steps to restore trust – such as reducing tensions on the border, removing barriers to trade, and discussing new areas of cooperation.
According to Olander, “India will probably leave behind the recent SCO disagreements and focus on stable relations with China, which is a major priority of Prime Minister Modi.”
This visit is also seen as an attempt by India to strike a diplomatic balance, so that it can test the possibilities of improving relations with China while maintaining its activism in regional forums.
Amid growing strategic competition in Asia and the assertive role of the global South, the conference in Tianjin could symbolise the newly emerging multipolar world order – in which India’s role is becoming ever more influential and complex.
