Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet on the sidelines of the 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China, on Sunday.
Following Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to India to meet with Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to discuss the future of their bilateral relations. This is Modi’s first visit to China in seven years, the last one was when he met the Chinese president in Wuhan for an informal summit in 2018.
In addition to India and China, the SCO has 10 other members: Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Modi will meet with Jinping on Sunday after traveling to Tianjin on the latter’s invitation. On Monday, he will also have a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As US President Donald Trump imposes 50 percent tariffs on India, Modi embarks on a crucial eastward journey to pursue deeper diplomatic ties. An additional 25 percent tariff was added on Wednesday, to the already existing 25 percent tariffs on Indian imports into the United States as a “penalty” for purchasing Russian oil.
After deadly clashes over their disputed Himalayan border in the Galwan Valley in 2020 that claimed the lives of at least 24 soldiers, ties between China and India have been tense in recent years. However, some analysts think the Jinping-Modi summit might be a significant turning point for the two Asian powers, with ramifications for US-India ties, as tensions between the two countries increase over new US tariffs on Indian exports.
Earlier, Jinping and Modi met in 2024, on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia.
Why is the SCO summit significant?
This bilateral summit comes at a time when India’s relationship with the US is significantly deteriorating, but it would be significant at any time, and earlier summits also garnered a lot of attention. The question of whether the US is pushing New Delhi to distance itself from Washington and seek to further protect India’s relations on the international scene is being raised by this summit. The timing is also of significance, given the geopolitical backdrop.
But with both countries facing tariff heat from Washington, could economic challenges push Beijing and New Delhi toward reluctant cooperation, transforming their adversarial relationship?
India-China experts do not believe that the SCO summit marks the start of a permanent friendship between the two nations. “The suspicion of China runs deep in India,” said Amit Bhandari, senior fellow for energy, investments, and connectivity at Gateway House, a think tank. But China and India are edging closer to one another because of shifting supply chains and US tariffs.
Yi said last week during his two-day visit to Delhi that China and India should see one another as “partners” rather than “adversaries or threats.”
“It is unlikely that Chinese partnership will become like the one India has with Russia or U.S.,” Bhandari added.
Experts predict that the SCO summit won’t settle disagreements or mend long-standing wounds between the two neighbours. However, Modi’s visit to Tianjin indicates that he is open to reaching a common ground.