Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Tianjin, China, on August 31 to September 1 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit—a major step towards normalizing relations with Beijing that were strained since the Galwan Valley border clash in 2020.
Modi is making his first trip to China since 2019, though he did have a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the October 2024 BRICS Summit in Kazan.
The summit provides a fresh venue for conversations during a time of global geopolitical tensions, such as the recent increase in U.S. tariffs on Indian exports and India's continued energy imports from Russia being criticized.
Considering the international environment today, India's overture to China is viewed as a strategic balancing move. The visit is also against the back drop of ongoing irritants over Beijing's stand on Pakistan and the recent Pahalgam terror attack.
In June, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh unsurprisingly refused to sign a joint statement at an SCO defence ministers' conference. The statement controversially avoided mentioning the April 22 Pahalgam terrorist attack that killed 26 individuals, while subtly accusing India indirectly by mentioning unrest in Balochistan—an exclusion said to have been guided by Pakistan.
But in July, China seemed to adopt a more balanced stance. After the U.S. terror designation of The Resistance Front, a Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy group involved in the Pahalgam attack, Beijing issued a strong denunciation of the attack.
"'China resolutely opposes all kind of terrorism and rigorously condemns the terrorist attack on April 22.' China urges regional countries to strengthen counter-terrorism cooperation and work together to maintain regional security and stability," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.
The SCO summit is likely to dwell extensively on regional security, counter-terrorism cooperation, and economic cooperation among its 10 members: Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India's participation at this platform is also likely to push the initiatives to revive dialogue and stability in ties with China.
On the summit's sidelines, there is also potential for high-level bilateral interactions between PM Modi and both President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. These discussions could further help relax border tensions and strengthen diplomatic channels.
Significantly, after the Modi-Xi meeting at the BRICS summit in October 2024, there had been tangible progress in the efforts at de-escalation at the disputed India-China border. The resumption of the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage had been one of the steps regarded as contributing to the reconciliation between the two neighbours.
Established in 2001, the SCO continues to be an important regional group focused on ensuring security, stability, and cooperative development. As geopolitical complexity increases, India's return this year may have increased strategic implications.
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