Chinese President Xi Jinping could meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan next month. There is hope that the event may also create an opening for a bilateral between Xi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on its margins. India and China are yet to officially confirm in-person participation of their leaders for the event that will be held in Samarkand during September 15-16.
Modi, who travelled abroad for several multilateral and bilateral meetings this year, Xi has not stepped out of China since January 2020. Xi could travel to Samarkand for the meeting of the regional security bloc and have bilateral relations with Putin in the middle of mounting tensions with the US over Taiwan.
However, Putin is eager for an in-person summit in Samarkand that will focus, among other things, on the security and human rights situation in Afghanistan. Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif is likely to travel to Uzbekistan for the summit. If all leaders do participate in person, Modi will almost certainly have a bilateral meeting with Putin and possibly with Xi too. While the border disengagement process with China in eastern Ladakh is still not complete.
China’s decision to twice block a UN ban on Pakistan based and India-focused terrorists has not gone down well with India and will weigh on the minds of Indian authorities while preparing for the possible summit meeting with Xi. Terrorism is going to be among the major issues that Modi will look to address during the SCO summit and, like he did at the virtual Brics summit in June, call for member-states to respect each other’s security concerns. At the Brics meeting, Modi had also called for mutual support in efforts to designate terrorists.
