• Source:JND
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit China later this week for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, marking his first visit to the country in over seven years.  His last appearance alongside Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin was at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia in 2024. The high-level summit on August 31 and September 1 in Tianjin is expected to bring together more than 20 global leaders on the same stage.

Xi Jinping To Host PM Modi

Chinese President Xi Jinping will personally welcome Prime Minister Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit, as reported by Reuters. The two leaders will sit alongside their counterparts in Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Authorities in Beijing have termed this year's event the biggest SCO summit since the bloc was established in 2001. The summit occurs amid China's efforts to promote the grouping as an "important force in building a new type of international relations.

For New Delhi, the visit carries added significance. This will be Modi’s first trip to China since the Galwan Valley clashes of 2020, which strained bilateral relations. Analysts cited by Reuters expect the summit sidelines to feature talks between Modi and Xi aimed at consolidating recent moves to de-escalate along the border. Both sides may also announce incremental measures, including troop withdrawals, easing of visa restrictions, and broader cooperation in climate and trade.

Optics Of Global South Unity

Experts quoted by Reuters state the Tianjin summit is less about policy initiatives and more about symbolism. "Xi is going to seize the opportunity of the summit to make a display of how a post-American-led international order is starting to look and that all White House attempts since January to push back against China, Iran, Russia, and now India have failed to have the desired impact," The China-Global South Project editor-in-chief Eric Olander told Reuters. Olander also added, "Just observe how much BRICS has unsettled Donald Trump, which is exactly what these groups are meant to do… This summit is about optics, really powerful optics."

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Moscow also keeps a close watch on the upcoming SCO summit. Russian Embassy staff in New Delhi informed Reuters that India, China, and Russia may hold trilateral talks in the near future. President Putin will stay on in China following the SCO to attend a World War II military parade in Beijing, as evidence of increasingly close Beijing–Moscow relations at a time of ongoing Western sanctions.

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The SCO has struggled with internal tensions despite the impressive backdrop. India and Pakistan came to blows at the June defence ministers' conclave, which concluded without a joint statement. New Delhi also declined to support the bloc's censure of Israeli attacks on Iran this year. Manoj Kewalramani, head of the Indo-Pacific Research Programme at Bangalore-based Takshashila Institution, said although the SCO has great convening power,“its effectiveness in addressing substantial security issues remains very limited.”

With inputs from agencies.