Tianjin, China
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A much-anticipated meeting of the leaders of the world’s two most populous nations is underway, with China’s Xi Jinping welcoming India’s Narendra Modi on the sidelines of regional summit in Tianjin – as the neighbors explore a rapprochement accelerated by their shared frictions with the US.
Xi and Modi began their meeting at the Tianjin Guest House around noon on Sunday, Chinese state media reported, in the Indian leader’s first visit to China in seven years.
Modi is attending a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Beijing-and Moscow-backed regional security grouping that has emerged as a cornerstone of Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drive to rebalance global power in their favor.
The visit will also give Modi an opportunity to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the two expected to hold bilateral talks on Monday, according to Russian state media – talks that come just after hefty US tariffs on Indian exports kicked in, linked to Indian purchases of Russian oil.
Modi’s visit marks a milestone in relations between Beijing and New Delhi, which have begun to ease frictions elevated since a deadly border skirmish in 2020 – a shift that becomes more valuable to India in the wake of a surprise turn in US-India ties in recent weeks.
US President Donald Trump earlier this month levied significant economic penalties on India, initially placing its imports into the US under 25% tariffs and then slapping an additional 25% duties on the country as punishment for importing Russian oil and gas – which the Trump administration views as helping Russia wage war on Ukraine.
Those frictions threaten what has been decades of effort from US diplomats to drive a wedge between New Delhi and Moscow and a more recent push to cultivate India as a key counterweight in Asia to a rising and increasingly assertive China.
Beijing is widely seen as happy for those newfound frictions to reduce security ties between the two partners. Chinese officials have watched with unease the elevation of the Quad security dialogue between India, the US and its allies Australia and Japan, widely seen as a bid to counter China.
There has been a gradual normalization of ties between India and China after Modi and Xi met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia last October, which came as the two sides reached an agreement on military disengagement along their disputed border.
In recent months, the countries agreed to restart direct flights cancelled since the Covid-19 pandemic, Beijing also recently agreed to reopen two pilgrimage sites in western Tibet to Indians for the first time in five years, and both started re-issuing tourist visas for each other’s citizens.
Earlier this month, following a visit from China’s top diplomat Wang Yi to New Delhi, the two announced “ten points of consensus” on the issue to further reduce tensions.
But observers say that even as the two leaders seek stability in their relationship, both in terms of trade and security, it will be hard for Xi and Modi to overcome their longstanding lack of personal trust.
Underlying tensions between India and China spiked in 2020 following a deadly conflict along their disputed Himalayan border, in which 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed in hand-to-hand combat.
Both nations maintain a heavy military presence along their 2,100-mile (3,379-kilometer) de facto border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) – a boundary that remains undefined and has been a persistent source of friction since their bloody 1962 war.
Since joining the SCO in 2017, India has appeared to some observers as an uneasy member of the group; placing the world’s largest democracy in a club that includes a number of autocrats and one that the key partners – Beijing and Moscow – have sought to shape into a force to counter a US-led world order – an aim at odds with New Delhi’s more non-aligned foreign policy.
India also sits in SCO alongside its rival Pakistan. The Tianjin summit will serve as the first time Modi will gather alongside Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif since the two countries engaged in a deadly, four-day conflict earlier this year.
The summit will also give Modi a key opportunity to sit down with long-term partner Putin, at a moment when India’s purchases of Russian oil are under pressure from the American tariffs.
Chinese refineries have placed new orders for Russian crude that will be shipped from ports that typically supply India, as demand from the South Asian country for Moscow’s crude slipped following the tariffs, CNN reported earlier this month.
The Indian leader has been performing a tricky balancing act since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, maintaining ties with both Washington, Moscow and Kyiv. India maintains neutrality in the war.
After his arrival in Tianjin, Modi said he spoke with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call on Saturday.
“We exchanged views on the ongoing conflict, its humanitarian aspect, and efforts to restore peace and stability. India extends full support to all efforts in this direction,” Modi wrote on X late Saturday.