SCO summit: Modi-Xi meet likely to focus on border and trade issues

PM Modi will meet Xi Jinping on SCO Summit sidelines to discuss border de-escalation, trade, rare earth supply, direct flights, and people-to-people exchanges

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s scheduled pull aside with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin next week is set to focus on de-escalation at the border, trade issues such as the supply of rare-earth elements, resuming direct flights, and more people-to-people contacts.

 

The PM will leave for a four-day foreign visit on Thursday evening. The visit will comprise a visit to Japan for a bilateral summit. He will then go to the northern Chinese city of Tianjin to attend the two-day SCO summit on Sunday.

 

Several bilateral meetings with leaders of other SCO member states have been scheduled on the sidelines of the summit, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Tuesday.

 

Sources said the Indian PM was also likely to have a pull aside with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tianjin. It is unlikely that the PM will have a meeting with Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif, who will also attend the summit because Pakistan is an SCO member state.

 

The MEA said it expected the SCO summit to strongly condemn cross-border terrorism. MEA Secretary (West) Tanmaya Lal said the declaration on terrorism was under finalisation. “We are working with other members and partners to see that there should be a reiteration of the strong condemnation of terrorism, including cross-border terrorism,” he said at a media briefing here on Tuesday afternoon. 

 

In the first leg of his four-day foreign visit, the PM will hold the annual India-Japan summit in Tokyo with Japanese PM Shigeru Ishiba. 

 

At Tuesday’s briefing, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said India and Japan had in recent years intensified the engagement between Indian states and Japanese prefectures, and an engagement focused on this particular aspect had been planned for during the visit.

 

To a question on whether Modi would invite his Japanese counterpart for the Quad summit, which New Delhi was slated to host later this year, Misri said Quad now covered critical and emerging technologies, critical minerals, how to make supply chains more resilient, and also infrastructure development. Apart from India and Japan, the United States (US) and Australia are also members of Quad. 

 

“We look forward to working with all Quad partners to take our cooperation forward. I’m sure when the two Prime Ministers (Modi and Ishiba) meet, Quad will be discussed,” Misri said.

 

India and Japan will look to deepen their defence cooperation during Modi’s visit. Given India-US tensions over tariffs, the fate of the Quad summit in New Delhi later this year is uncertain.

 

In a related development, Japan has asked European and Asian countries to not attend a military parade being held in China on September 3 to commemorate what Beijing describes as the “War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in World War II”. The parade will be held in Beijing after the SCO summit concludes in Tianjin on September 1.

 

Modi is scheduled to return to India after the conclusion of the SCO summit on September 1.