PM Modi To Visit China, First Trip Since 2020
BEIJING- Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to travel to China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit to be held in Tianjin City from August 31-September 1. This will be PM Modi’s first visit to China since the Galwan clash in 2020, which severely strained bilateral ties. It is also coming in the wake of strained ties with the US under the leadership of Donald Trump.
Modi had earlier travelled to China in 2019. He also held a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Russia’s Kazan in 2024.
The breakthrough in bilateral talks, the first after the Galwan Valley face-off between the soldiers of the two countries at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in June 2020, was made possible after New Delhi and Beijing reached an agreement on patrolling along the nearly 3500-km LAC to end the four-year-long border confrontation.
Earlier in June, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh visited China to attend the SCO Defense Ministers Meeting. India had refused to endorse the joint declaration at the SCO Defense Ministers’ meeting, citing the exclusion of concerns around terrorism as a key reason.
India stated that it wanted concerns about terrorism reflected in the document, which was not acceptable to one particular country; therefore, the statement was not adopted.
The SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organization established in Shanghai in 2001. The member states of SCO include India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus. (IANS)
