- Prime Minister Modi will visit China for the SCO summit from August 31 to September 1
- Modi and Xi Jinping may meet during the SCO summit in Tianjin to ease border tensions
- India’s SCO priorities include trade, connectivity, and respect for sovereignty and borders
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during his China visit later this week. PM Modi will be in China between August 31 and September 1 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin.
The summit will feature Modi's first visit to China in more than seven years as the two neighbours work on further defusing tensions roiled by deadly border clashes in 2020. The two leaders last shared the same stage at last year's BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia.
India's priorities at the SCO include trade, connectivity, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, Indian foreign ministry official Tanmaya Lal was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.
The recent detente between New Delhi and Beijing after five years of heightened border frictions, as well as renewed tariff pressure on New Delhi from the Trump administration, is driving expectations for a positive meeting between Chinese President Jinping and PM Modi on the sidelines of the summit.
SEO 2025
The Chinese President will gather more than 20 world leaders at a regional security forum in China starting Sunday, in a powerful show of Global South solidarity in the age of Donald Trump, while also helping sanctions-hit Russia pull off another diplomatic coup.
Aside from Russian President Vladimir Putin and PM Modi, leaders from Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia have been invited to the SCO summit.
This year's summit will be the largest since the SCO was founded in 2001, a Chinese foreign ministry official said last week, calling the bloc an "important force in building a new type of international relations".
The security-focused bloc, which began as a group of six Eurasian nations, has expanded to 10 permanent members and 16 dialogue and observer countries in recent years. Its remit has also enlarged from security and counter-terrorism to economic and military cooperation.
