Tianjin, China
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Chinese leader Xi Jinping told India’s Narendra Modi that the “right choice” is that their country will become friends as the two met in China for the first time in seven years.
Xi and Modi’s highly planned Sunday meeting, on the sidelines of the regional summit in eastern port urban cities, faces not only Western scrutiny over U.S. tariffs under President Donald Trump’s world trade war, under the war in Ukraine, but also Western scrutiny about ties with Russia.
“The world today will be wiped out by the transformation of a century,” Xi told Modi in an open statement as both leaders sat adjacent to staff. “The international situation is fluid and confusing,” he added.
“The right choice is to have both sides dance together with their neighbors and partners that allow each other to succeed together, a dragon and elephant dance,” Xi said, referring to the traditional symbols of both countries.
“As long as they stick to the overall direction of being partners rather than rivals… China-India relations can remain stable and move forward in the long term,” he said.
Modi said India has “committed” to advance the country’s relationship “on the basis of mutual trust and respect” and referenced the improvements in their ties, including easing tensions along their contested Himalayan borders in 2020, when the two fought a deadly skirmish.
“The profits of our country’s 2.8 billion people are linked to our cooperation,” he added.
In Washington, positive signals should be closely monitored. Tensions with New Delhi are certainly threatening to derail years of efforts from US diplomats.
How Trump drives the country into China’s orbit
Earlier this month, Trump imposed significant economic penalties on India, initially placing imports in the US at a 25% tariff, and then placed an additional 25% obligation on the country as a punishment for Russian oil and gas imports that Washington believes will help fund the Putin war in Ukraine. Both China and India are the leading buyers of Russian oil, but China has yet to target such measures.
Modi said he spoke with Ukrainian leader Voldimir Zelensky on Saturday and “exchanged opinions on the ongoing conflict.” India has previously said it is not ally in the war.
In his daily speech on Sunday, Zelensky said, “Everyone in the world said they had to stop fighting,” including Türkiye, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. “Almost everyone else in the world is in favor of ending the war,” he continued.
The purchase of Indian oil could be the point of discussion on Monday when Modi is expected to hold a bilateral talk with Putin, part of his broader diplomacy as he attends part of the two-day summit known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), supported by Beijing and Moscow.
In addition to China, Russia and India, the group includes Iran, Pakistan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, partners and observer countries. Prior to the event, Chinese officials said leaders from more than 20 countries across Asia and the Middle East will be taking part in the summit.
XI hosted the leader for a welcoming banquet on Sunday evening. There, he appeared to be exhibiting a warm and relaxed relationship of trust with Putin. Footage released by the RIA of the Russian News Agency showed two leaders animated and smiling as they chatted at the event, showing another aspect of a typically restrained Chinese leader.
The pair then took a photo with the other assembled leaders before walking shoulder-to-shoulder together, with Putin making gestures to walk with him, the Kremlin announced.
The SCO is the first time the two leaders will meet in person since the summit of Trump and Putin’s summit earlier this month in Alaska. It is part of the US president’s push to end the war in Ukraine. XI and Putin “discussed the latest contact details” between the US and Russia during “detailed conversations,” Russian state media reported on Sunday, citing Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov.
Putin’s war approaches the gust of diplomacy around the gathering of Sko and the gust of diplomacy around it. The Russian president landed in Tianjin early on Sunday, and Western leaders began to pressure him and his partners to join the rally, ending more than three years of invasion.
Beijing is eager to renewed tensions between Trump and Modi, and is widely seen as reducing the rapidly growing security ties between the US and India. Chinese officials are widely seen as a bid to counter China, with fears of the promotion of quad security dialogue between India, the US and its allies.
In his remarks to Modi on Sunday, XI tried to highlight commonality. They frawn both countries as “an important stage of development and rejuvenation,” and, according to the view from China’s foreign ministries, they called for “focusing on development, supporting each other and moving forward.”
He also referred to their shared purpose of making international orders more “multipolar” – a term used by countries that seek to be more widely shared by international countries, as seen by the United States and its allies, in contrast to the dominance of the United States and its allies.
It was gradually normalized between India and China after Modi and Xi met bystanders at the BRICS summit held in Russia in October last year.
In recent months, the country has agreed to resume direct flights since the Covid-19 pandemic. Beijing recently agreed to reopen two pilgrimage sites in western Tibet to Indians for the first time in five years, and both began reissuing tourist visas for each other’s citizens.
Earlier this month, after a visit from Chinese diplomat King Yi to New Delhi, the two announced a “10-point consensus” on the issue, further alleviating tensions.
On Sunday, Xi Jinbu and Modi discussed “what’s happening in the International Plain and the challenges they create” when asked Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Mithri about whether Trump’s tariffs have been raised.
“In a sense, they tried to see how to utilize it and see how to build a deeper understanding between themselves and how to advance the economic and commercial relationship between India and China and China in the midst of these evolving challenges,” Misri said.
However, observers say that it is difficult for two leaders to overcome a long-standing lack of personal trust in both trade and security, despite the two leaders seeking stability in their relationship.
The underlying tension between India and China was a fatal conflict in 2020 following the contested 2020 conflict along the Himalayan border, killing 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers on hand.
Both countries maintain a heavy military presence along the de facto 2,100 miles (3,379 km) boundary known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
However, both leaders on Sunday seemed eager to show the welcome of the warm chapter.
India’s reading, released following the meeting, reaffirmed that “their differences should not turn into conflict,” and said that their “stable relationships and cooperation” are necessary for “the growth and development of both countries, as well as for the multipolar world.”
