Amid US Tariff Row, Modi Set to Meet Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin in China

New Delhi: Amid trade tensions with the United States, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold bilateral meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, where he will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit next week on September 1. The Prime Minister is scheduled to attend a welcome banquet hosted by the Chinese President on Sunday evening for the SCO member nations, that include Pakistan.

In his departure statement released late on Thursday evening, Mr Modi stated, “India is an active and constructive member of SCO. During our presidency, we introduced new ideas and initiated collaboration in the fields of innovation, health and cultural exchanges. India remains committed to working with the SCO members to address shared challenges and deepen regional cooperation. I also look forward to meeting Mr Xi, Mr Putin and other leaders on the sidelines of the summit.”

The SCO comprises 10 member nations—India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran and Central Asian nations Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Belarus has joined as the 10th member nation of the grouping, which is seen by many observers as a China- and Russia-led bloc.

The bilateral meeting between Mr Modi and Mr Putin, likely to take place on Monday in Tianjin, is also expected to send a strong message to the United States, which has imposed a 50 per cent tariff on India, including a 25 per cent penalty tariff, on India for importing Russian oil. India and Russia are time-tested friends and very close strategic partners for decades.

The Russian President is expected to visit India by the end of the year for the annual summit between the two nations. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had also recently visited Moscow.

The bilateral meeting to be held between Mr Modi and Mr Xi marks a major turnaround in ties between the two Asian giants. This also comes just days after the visit of Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi to New Delhi. China has also opposed the 50 per cent tariffs levied by the US on India and has termed the United States a bully.

So far as Sino-Indian ties are concerned, Mr Modi and Mr Xi had held a bilateral meeting in October last year on the sidelines of the Brics summit in the Russian city of Kazan, following which the two nations had announced a breakthrough in ties by inking a pact on military disengagement in Depsang and Demchok in the Ladakh sector after several rounds of talks at both the diplomatic and military level which set the course for improvement of ties.

India's ties with China were strained since 2020 after Chinese troops amassed at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Ladakh sector in April-May that year in violation of bilateral border pacts, leading to the clash between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan valley in June that year, in which troops on both sides were killed.

The Prime Minister’s visit to China will be his first since the deadly Galwan Valley clash between Indian and Chinese troops in mid-June 2020.