With tense relations with China, PM Modi is expected to miss the SCO summit
While PM Modi has already declared that he will attend the SCO conference, Economic Times did, however, indicate that EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar would now be dispatched to represent India
Due to his tense relations with China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is probably going to miss the (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) SCO summit, which is scheduled for July 3–4 in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Modi has already declared that he will attend the SCO conference. The Economic Times did, however, indicate that Dr. S. Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs, would now be dispatched to represent India.
The US launched harsh accusations against China during the Congressional Delegates’ travel to Dharamshala, India, to meet with the Dalai Lama, which precipitated the most recent deterioration in relations.
Around the BRICS Summit in South Africa in 2023, Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had their most recent encounter. Virtual meetings were used during the 2023 SCO summit, which India presided over.
Present members of the SCO include Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Pakistan, Russia, and the Kyrgyz Republic.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, leaders of Central Asia, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif are slated to attend the summit being hosted by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The fact that Mr. Modi chose not to attend the SCO Heads of State Council in Astana may also have an impact on India’s attendance in the SCO Heads of Government summit, which Pakistan will host in Islamabad in “Autumn 2024.”
When questioned on Friday, MEA spokeswoman Randhir Jaiswal said that the visit’s specifics had not yet been “finalised” and denied to confirm India’s membership in the SCO.
In spite of the presence of other world leaders, Mr. Modi’s absence from the SCO is likely to cast doubt on India’s dedication to the organisation, which it became a full member of just seven years ago. When Mr. Modi travelled to Kazakhstan in 2017 for the SCO Summit, the country had grown increasingly problematic for New Delhi in the intervening years. With leaders of both nations criticising one another over the problem of terrorism, tensions between India and Pakistan, which was also admitted in 2017, have frequently been the main source of annoyance at the summit.
The 2020–2021 COVID epidemic caused the SCO meetings to be televised. Although they had a brief conversation on the sidelines of the G-20 in Indonesia in 2022 and the BRICS summit in South Africa in 2023, Mr Modi has not met Chinese President Xi Jinping for a bilateral meeting anywhere since the military standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the deadly Galwan clashes of 2020, and the breakdown in ties.
Attendance at the 2024 SCO Summit
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has further complicated relations with Moscow. Even though Mr. PM and President Putin met during the SCO conference in Uzbekistan that year, the violence and Mr. Modi’s declaration that “this era is not of war” overshadowed their talk. Since then, India and Russia have not convened the yearly Putin-Modi summit. Additionally, the administration opted to hold the summit electronically because of “scheduling difficulties,” postponing a potential meeting when India hosted the SCO for the first time in 2023.
Yury Ushakov, a senior diplomat and Mr. Putin’s foreign policy advisor, told the TASS news agency earlier this month that the Russian President was looking forward to meeting Mr. Modi at the conference and that it was particularly significant “in light of the elections in India, which have just finished.”
In stark contrast to his presence at the G-7 gathering in Italy last week—of which India is not a member but was invited to the “Outreach” alongside nine other nations—if Mr. Modi skips the SCO gathering in July. All eyes will be on Mr. Modi’s attendance at the BRICS conference, which President Putin is hosting in Kazan at the end of October this year. This year, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia will join the organisation of which India is a founding member.
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