China has confirmed that India has issued Chinese President Xi Jinping a formal invitation to the SCO conference. Chinese charge d’ affaires Ma Jia, however, said that a decision on whether Xi would come was still awaited as the date for the summit had not been finalised yet.
The SCO meeting is likely in the first week of July, two months before the G20 summit on September 8-9, where India hopes to forge a consensus on the Ukraine issue in the form of a joint communique, like last year’s Bali Declaration. In a sign of the complications India might have to circumvent, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in their summit meeting slammed the West for “politicisation” of multilateral platforms and attempts to insert “irrelevant issues” in their agenda. Ma expressed the same sentiment here as she said consensus would be difficult as “prominent security issues” were being taken up on economic and financial platforms. She also confirmed Xi had received an official invite for the G20 summit in September.
India had initially suggested holding the SCO summit on June 25, but now, it seems, they want it moved to July 5. From June 21 and 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is most likely to make a state visit to the US. Modi and Xi have not had a bilateral meeting since tensions erupted at the LAC in April-May 2020.
Speaking about the border situation, which she described as stable but also complicated, Ma said she was optimistic about the talks underway to resolve the stand-off and that neither side wanted war or confrontation. She reiterated China’s position that the two sides are moving towards “normalised” border management.