Modi, Xi to come face-to-face next week at virtual SCO Summit, a first since border row began

PM Modi and China's Xi are expected to meet virtually at three other summits in November — ASEAN, chaired by Vietnam, BRICS, chaired by Russia, and G-20, chaired by Saudi Arabia.

File image of PM Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping | Wikimedia Commons

New Delhi: Come 10 November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will come face-to-face, albeit virtually, with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since the border stand-off at Ladakh began this May as the two leaders participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.

This is the first time the SCO Summit, which is being hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, will be taking place in a virtual format.

“The Prime Minister will lead the Indian delegation to the 20th Summit of the SCO Council of Heads of State, which will be held in the virtual format on 10 November … This is the third meeting where we will be participating as full members,” Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said Friday at a media briefing.

India became a full-time member of the SCO in June 2017, at the same time as Pakistan. The SCO is an inter-governmental organisation with eight members — India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Its aims include maintaining peace in the region and “strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness among the member states”, while promoting cooperation in politics, trade, economy, research, technology and culture, as well as education, energy, transport, tourism, environmental protection, and other areas”.

Prime Minister Modi’s participation at SCO was confirmed just as the eighth round of military-level talks between New Delhi and Beijing came to an end at Chushul near the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The current stand-off is the first since 1975 that has seen soldiers on both sides die. Despite multiple rounds of dialogue, the situation at the border remains tense, with both sides set to deploy soldiers in Ladakh’s forward areas through the region’s bitter winter, something that has never been done before. 

While Prime Minister Modi and President Xi also participated in the UN General Assembly in September 2020 — which was again held virtually — they spoke on different days.

According to Srivastava, India will also host a SCO heads-of-government meeting on 30 November where the Prime Ministers of SCO member countries, including Pakistan’s Imran Khan, will come together.

‘Close communication continues’

In September, the foreign ministers of SCO met in person in Moscow, where External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar held a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to discuss the border stand-off.  

The last SCO Summit was held at Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in June 2019, where Modi held a separate bilateral meeting with President Xi. It is there that Modi invited Xi for a second round of their informal summit — the first was at Wuhan in 2018 — and it culminated in the October 2019 Mamallapuram informal summit.

“As conveyed earlier, both sides continue to maintain close communication at the military and diplomatic levels to achieve complete disengagement along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The two sides are guided by the leaders’ consensus to jointly safeguard peace and tranquility in the border areas,” Srivastava said on the present situation at the border.

Modi and Xi will also be meeting virtually on 13-15 November for the ASEAN Summit where India has been invited especially invited by Vietnam, which is the group’s chair for this year.

The leaders are also expected to come face-to-face at two other summits — BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit, chaired by Russia, on 17 November, and G-20, chaired by Saudi Arabia, on 21-22 November.

“We will continue to maintain the dialogue with the Chinese side to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution to the current situation along the LAC in eastern Ladakh,” Srivastava said.