TIANJIN: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi touched down in the Chinese city of Tianjin on Saturday evening, Indian TV networks showed, a day before a summit that will be attended by leaders from more than 20 countries.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation gathering will be held in the northern port city on Sunday and Monday, days before a massive military parade in nearby Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will be among some 26 world leaders slated to attend the parade, though Modi was not on a list of attendees for the parade published by Chinese state media on Thursday.
Modi’s visit – his first to China since 2018 – comes straight after a trip to Japan, which pledged to invest $68 billion in India.
China and India, the world’s two most populous nations, are intense rivals competing for influence across South Asia and fought a deadly border clash in 2020.
A thaw began last October when Modi met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia.
The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. Another 16 countries are affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners”.
Xi began welcoming leaders including Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Egyptian Premier Moustafa Madbouly on Saturday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is also due to arrive in Tianjin ahead of the summit.
China and Russia have used the SCO – sometimes touted as a counter to the Western-dominated NATO military alliance – to deepen ties with Central Asian states.
Other leaders including Iranian and Turkish presidents Masoud Pezeshkian and Recep Tayyip Erdogan will also attend the bloc’s largest meeting since its founding in 2001.
Bilateral meetings
Multiple bilateral meetings are expected to be held on the sidelines of the summit.
The Kremlin said on Friday that Putin will discuss the Ukraine conflict with Erdogan on Monday.
India backs Quad group ahead of Modi’s Japan visit
Turkiye has hosted three rounds of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine this year that have failed to break the deadlock over how to end the conflict, triggered when Moscow launched its invasion of its pro-European neighbour in February 2022.
Putin will also meet with his Iranian counterpart Pezeshkian to discuss Tehran’s nuclear programme on Monday, a meeting that comes as Iran faces fresh Western pressure.
Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3, triggered a “snapback” mechanism on Thursday to reinstate UN sanctions on Iran for failing to comply with commitments made in a 2015 deal over its nuclear programme.
Russia’s foreign ministry warned that the reimposition of sanctions against Iran risked “irreparable consequences”.
Tehran and Moscow have been bolstering political, military and economic ties over the past decade as Russia drifted away from the West.
Relations between them grew even closer after Russia launched its offensive against Ukraine.
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