Trump's Tariffs, Xi's Handshake And Putin's Pipeline – What PM Modi Hopes To Gain At SCO Summit In China

India.com

3 hours ago

New Delhi: With Washington's tariff hammer falling hard and regional diplomacy entering a turbulent stretch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is heading to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. It will mark his first visit to the country since the deadly 2020 Galwan Valley clash.
Scheduled for August 31 to September 1 in the northern port city of Tianjin, the visit comes at a delicate moment. Not only is India navigating fallout from stiff new trade duties imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, but it is also facing scrutiny over its oil imports from Russia.
Modi's presence at the SCO summit is being seen by many as an attempt to recalibrate India's strategic posture, especially as tensions with the West rise and ties with Beijing show signs of cautious repair.
This is the prime minister's first trip to China in five years. While he last set foot on Chinese soil in 2019, he did meet President Xi Jinping briefly during the BRICS summit held in Kazan in October 2024. That interaction helped ease the freeze in high-level dialogue and set the stage for ongoing border talks. It also helped the reopening of the Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra, a symbolic step toward thawing relations.
But trust remains fragile.
India's decision to attend the SCO summit also comes just weeks after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh refused to sign a joint statement at a key SCO defence meet. The reason was omission of any mention of the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam, which left 26 dead, in the statement. Instead, the final document inserted a reference to Balochistan that was widely seen as a move pushed by Pakistan to paint India as a regional destabiliser.
The omission did not go unnoticed in New Delhi. According to Indian officials, the document appeared tilted, with no acknowledgment of the human cost of the Pahalgam killings.
However, in a surprise move the following month, China issued a strongly worded statement condemning the attack. It came after the United States officially designated The Resistance Front, a Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot, as a foreign terrorist organisation. Beijing's reaction reflected a shift in tone, even if not in alignment.
'China firmly opposes all forms of terrorism and strongly condemns the terrorist attack that occurred on April 22... China calls on regional countries to enhance counterterrorism cooperation and jointly maintain regional security and stability,' said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian in a statement that caught diplomatic watchers off guard.
Against this backdrop, PM Modi's China visit could carry more weight than just optics.
Talks at the SCO will include 10 member countries: India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The agenda includes counterterrorism, regional security and trade.
With the United States hiking tariff pressure, there is growing speculation that New Delhi may be rebalancing (less reliant on the West and more open to multilateral blocs with Beijing and Moscow in the room).
There is also the likelihood of side meetings between Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, adding geopolitical heft to the summit.
Founded in 2001, the SCO has evolved from a regional security bloc to a broader platform for economic and strategic cooperation. But this year's gathering comes with unusual undertones: a terror attack still unresolved, trade wars intensifying and major powers reshuffling their alliances.
For India, more than being a summit, the SCO is a test of how far it can stretch its strategic space between a China that shares a tense border, a Russia that supplies its oil and a United States that is tightening the screws on both.