Guizio and Le Sserafim marked their first collaboration with a limited-edition capsule collection featuring everyday essentials designed by the New York City-based womenswear label and K-pop girl group. The capsule collection drops Monday on Guizio’s official website and will also be offered at the flagship store in New York City’s Soho neighborhood.
“Le Sserafim embodies so many of the values and aesthetics that Guizio stands for: fearlessness, individuality and that balance of softness and strength,” Danielle Guizio, founder of her eponymous label, told WWD. “Collaborating with them allowed us to merge the worlds of fashion and music, which to me are completely intertwined.”
Danielle Guizio x Le Sserafim
Courtesy of Danielle Guizio x Le Sserafim
Le Sserafim members Kim Chaewon, Sakura, Huh Yunjin, Kazuha and Hong Eunchae each brought their own unique approach to style when collaborating on the design of the youth culture-oriented collection.
The limited-edition capsule collection will feature staples of the Guizio label along with playful accessories. The drop will include such pieces as graphic and bedazzled T-shirts, cozy hoodies, a soft cardigan, fold-over pants, knee-high and calf socks, and a plush bear charm.
“The collection is full of fun, tender love and care details such as rhinestones, lace, thigh-high socks. I love that these elements really channel their energy and our brand DNA,” Guizio said.
Danielle Guizio x Le Sserafim
Courtesy of Danielle Guizio x Le Sserafim
Pieces from the collection range from $28 to $198.
“Guizio has always been about storytelling through clothing, and I see the brand continuing to grow in ways that allow us to explore new narratives, whether through global collaborations, expanding categories, or deeper cultural crossovers,” the designer and Guizio founder said.
“I want to keep pushing boundaries while staying grounded in our core values of femininity, confidence and creativity. Collaborations like this one with Le Sserafim are just the beginning! I’m so excited to keep building bridges between fashion, music, and culture on a larger scale.”
Danielle Guizio x Le Sserafim
Courtesy of Danielle Guizio x Le Sserafim
Danielle Guizio founded her eponymous womenswear label in 2014, curating feminine styles in her collections. Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and more previously wore pieces from the brand.
Alibaba Group's shares surged in Hong Kong on optimism about its cloud business amid strong AI demand and improvements in its e-commerce.
Shares rose as much as 19% to 137.50 Hong Kong dollars, equivalent to US$17.64, early Monday, putting it on track for their biggest one-day gain in more than three years. The stock was the top gainer on the benchmark Hang Seng Index, which was recently up 2.2%.
The rally followed a 13% jump in its ADRs on Friday after earnings. Alibaba posted a 78% rise in net profit for the three months ended June from a year earlier.
Alibaba said cloud revenue grew 26% in the April-June quarter on surging demand for AI services. Chief Executive Eddie Wu has called "AI plus cloud" one of Alibaba's two growth engines, alongside e-commerce.
The results prompted several analysts to raise target prices, citing accelerating cloud revenue driven by AI monetization and improvements in its quick commerce.
Alibaba's rapid-delivery feature on its shopping platform is its latest bid to take share in China's on-demand delivery market from rivals such as JD.com and Meituan; so-called quick commerce typically delivers in under an hour.
The pace of profitability improvement in quick commerce appears faster than expected, Daiwa Capital Markets analysts John Choi and Robin Leung wrote, adding that cloud revenue growth should accelerate in coming quarters as AI workloads rise. They lifted their target price to HK$180 from HK$170.
Alibaba has achieved its "first-stage goal for quick commerce, which is to scale up user growth and build consumer mind share," Jefferies analysts said.
This brings "much-needed growth," but will cause temporary margin pressure, Nomura analysts Jialong Shi and Rachel Guo said. "In the long run, we think Alibaba's strength lies in the retail-related quick commerce service," they said.
Nomura raised its target price for Alibaba's ADRs to US$170 from US$152 on a stronger outlook for the e-commerce and cloud.
Quick commerce losses will likely peak in the September quarter, while growing AI demand continues to drive cloud momentum, they added.
Alibaba's Hong Kong shares are up 66% so far this year.
Small galleries in Korea have multiplied at a breathtaking pace in recent years, buoyed by the arrival of Frieze Seoul in 2022 and the momentum of hallyu (the Korean Wave), turning the city into one of the world’s most buzzed-about destinations for gallery hopping.
Homegrown heavyweights, including Kukje Gallery, Hyundai Gallery, and Arario Gallery, have long anchored themselves in Samcheong-dong, an area beloved by international visitors for its winding alleys and centuries-old hanok houses, while international players like Lehmann Maupin and Pace Gallery are clustered in the central district Yongsan.
But a new wave of younger galleries has gravitated toward less conventional settings like Euljiro, a neighborhood known for its industrial grit and hipster edge, and Haebangchon, once a hillside of makeshift homes for migrants displaced after Japanese colonization and the Korean War and now a multicultural enclave of cafes and bars. Some have even reimagined their own homes as exhibition sites, blurring the line between domestic and public space.
These choices are deliberate. Gwansoo Shin, founder of Shower Gallery, sees the scene’s vitality lying in small spaces that “offer alternatives to what came before.” For him, occupying nontraditional sites is a way of resisting the white cube aesthetic.
The spaces often echo the neighborhoods around them. Hyejin Jee, founder of Sangheeut Gallery in Haebangchon, said she chose the neighborhood precisely for its layered history, which has recently been dubbed “Freedom Village” and is home to a large international community, including English-speaking expats.
Yet, the energy has met headwinds, with Korea’s domestic art market seemingly caught in a prolonged slump, slowed by a sluggish economy. Jungwoo Lee, an artist who is also the director of WWNN gallery, said some local galleries have already undergone a kind of “gentrification,” or a return to the old ways of doing things, but those who weathered the storm have emerged stronger, primarily because each has a distinct program and together, they foster a healthy spirit of competition.
Below a look at five Seoul-based galleries whose singular approaches and commitment to nurturing singular artistic voices makes them worth watching.
PS Center
Image Credit: Courtesy PS Center
A nonprofit named Eulji Art Center until 2022, PS Center was recently reimagined by director Park Jiinn after years of watching artists abandon their practices—and after beginning her own path as a collector. Together with three partners, most of whom come from nonprofit backgrounds, she now runs PS Center with an emphasis on nurturing genuine relationships: guiding new collectors at the start of their journey, while working closely with artists to shape each exhibition.
Housed on the top floor of a former metal factory in Euljiro, the gallery’s arched ceiling hints at its past life. Surrounded by nine other galleries and nonprofits within walking distance, it has become a natural stop on Seoul’s gallery-hopping circuit. Recent programs include a solo exhibition by New York–based Korean painter Park Yoo-ah, known for her portrait series of Korean adoptees.
During Frieze Seoul, the gallery will present a new body of work by Indian artist Naresh Kumar, created during his residency in Gwangju—a city still scarred by the 1980 massacre, when the military killed many pro-democracy demonstrators. Kumar’s works explore the persistence of collective movement, and the struggles that continue to echo across borders and generations. Titled “March to March,” the exhibition runs August 26 to September 13.
Address: 3F, 18, Changgyeonggung-ro 5da-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul
WWNN
Image Credit: Courtesy WWNN
Short for What We Need Now, WWNN was founded in 2023 by artist Jungwoo Lee and curator Juhyun Oh. With a focus on showing installation art, interactive works, and site-specific projects, the gallery’s program revolves around a central question: what it means to be human today.
Lee and Oh believe that understanding the present requires voices that cut across generations, and they often mount exhibitions in which emerging artists are placed in dialogue with mid-career artists. This approach can be seen in a 2024 group exhibition, titled “Fairy Tales,” in which painter Luc Tuymans showed alongside artists decades his junior.
During Frieze Seoul, the gallery will collaborate with Japanese gallery CON, following a joint project at last year’s Art Collaboration Kyoto. From September 4–27, CON will take over WWNN’s space to stage a group show of four artists from Japan and Sweden. Blending hybrid sculpture and sound installations with painting and reconfigured urban objects, the exhibition, titled “Fantasy in the Unexpected,” will probe fragile connections between material, memory, and myth.
Address: 20, Samcheong-ro 5-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul
Shower Gallery
Image Credit: Courtesy Shower Gallery
With a background in exhibition design and production, artist Gwansoo Shin founded Shower Gallery in 2023 as a space to test ambitious and radical forms of art. For Shin, the gallery is less about displaying objects than about staging meaningful encounters.
That ethos came into focus with “SUCCESSION 0.1,” an exhibition in which artist Hyein Min transformed the space into a labyrinth of temporary wooden walls for photography, video, and sculpture. When the show ended, Canadian artist Simon Shim-Sutcliffe repurposed the structures into a long bridge-like table. Over the course of a week, the gallery became a site of process and play, where visitors shared dinners and, on the final night, a party.
Shower’s current exhibition, on view until September 14, will feature Shanghai-based artist Chen Ruofan, presenting a large-scale installation that transforms factory sawdust into both a visceral environment that looks at the hidden toll of labor and environmental neglect.
Address: GF, 61, Duteopbawi-ro Yonsan-gu, Seoul
Sangheeut Gallery
Image Credit: Courtesy Sangheeut Gallery
After working at blue-chip galleries including Thaddaeus Ropac and Kukje Gallery, Hyejin Jee founded Sangheeut, the only gallery in Haebangchon, in 2021. Jee envisions the gallery as a platform for stories of her generation, giving artists room to experiment with formats that feel less tied to commercial pressure. Sangheeut has introduced rising voices such as Tokyo-based American artist Michael Rikio Ming Hee Ho, Indonesian multidisciplinary artist Maruto Ardi, and Korean sculptor Eugene Jung.
From August 28 to September 27, the gallery will present “Doorstep,” a solo show by Jisoo Lee. Drawing from her own experience as a woman living alone in Korea—where many adopt camouflage tactics like leaving men’s shoes at the door to deter gender-based crimes or avoid societal pressure—Lee explores the fragile boundaries of private space that have been breached by others.
Address: 30, Sinheung-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
Xlarge Gallery
Image Credit: Courtesy Xlarge Gallery
Xlarge is both an exhibition space and a home, founded in 2025 by Jae Seok Kim, a past editor-in-chief of Art in Culture and a former director of Gallery Hyundai, where he once mounted exhibitions for artists such as Lee Kun-Yong, Simon Fujiwara, and Ryan Gander.
The space grew out of Kim’s desire to bring art closer to daily life and to carve out room for curatorial initiatives that champion LGBTQ+ artists, whose visibility remains limited in Korea, where debates around gender equality are fraught and same-sex marriage is still not recognized.
On view until October, the gallery’s current exhibition, only the third since its founding, is a solo for Lee Dong-hyun, titled “Hole-Hole Hoo-ha.” Lee’s sculptures unravel the forms of stuffed animals and Olympic mascots, recombining them into strange hybrids. Installed within the domestic setting, these playful yet unsettling creatures seem to stage a takeover of the house, filling it with both humor and unease.
Our bodies are colonized by a teeming, ever-changing mass of microbes that help power countless biological processes. Now, a new study has identified how these microorganisms get to work shaping the brain before birth.
Researchers at Georgia State University studied newborn mice specifically bred in a germ-free environment to prevent any microbe colonization. Some of these mice were immediately placed with mothers with normal microbiota, which leads to microbes being transferred rapidly.
That gave the study authors a way to pinpoint just how early microbes begin influencing the developing brain. Their focus was on the paraventricular nucleus (PVN), a region of the hypothalamus tied to stress and social behavior, already known to be partly influenced by microbe activity in mice later in life.
Related: An Extra Sense May Connect Gut Bacteria With Our Brain
“At birth, a newborn body is colonized by microbes as it travels through the birth canal,” says behavioral neuroscientist Alexandra Castillo Ruiz.
“Birth also coincides with important developmental events that shape the brain. We wanted to further explore how the arrival of these microbes may affect brain development.”
Cell numbers were lower in germ-free (GF) mice. (Milligan et al., Horm. Behav., 2025)
When the germ-free mice were just a handful of days old, the researchers found fewer neurons in their PVN, even when microbes were introduced after birth. That suggests the changes caused by these microorganisms happen in the uterus during development.
These neural modifications last, too: the researchers also found that the PVN was neuron-light even in adult mice, if they’d been raised to be germ-free. However, the cross-fostering experiment was not continued into adulthood (around eight weeks).
The details of this relationship still need to be worked out and researched in greater detail, but the takeaway is that microbes – specifically the mix of microbes in the mother’s gut – can play a notable role in the brain development of their offspring.
“Rather than shunning our microbes, we should recognize them as partners in early life development,” says Castillo-Ruiz. “They’re helping build our brains from the very beginning.”
While this has only been shown in mouse models so far, there are enough biological similarities between mice and humans that there’s a chance we’re also shaped by our mother’s microbes before we’re born.
One of the reasons this matters is because practices like Cesarean sections and the use of antibiotics around birth are known to disrupt certain types of microbe activity – which may in turn be affecting the health of newborns.
In particular, it could be leading to changes in stress and social behavior, as handled by the PVN part of the brain – though it’s too early to make any definitive conclusions. In the words of the researchers, it “merits further investigation”.
An obvious follow-up would be to investigate how the microbiota of mothers-to-be can be altered. Previous research has already linked these gut microbes to changes in diet, sleep patterns, alcohol intake, and overall health, for example.
“Our study shows that microbes play an important role in sculpting a brain region that is paramount for body functions and social behavior,” says Castillo-Ruiz.
“In addition, our study indicates that microbial effects start in the womb via signaling from maternal microbes.”
The research has been published in Hormones and Behavior.
MANAGUA (Nicaragua) – Brazil earned revenge in the FIBA AmeriCup 2025 Final, dethroning Argentina in a defensive battle. The Brazilians prevailed 55-47 on Sunday at the Alexis Argüello Sports Complex to capture their fifth gold medal and 12th overall podium finish in the continent’s premier competition.
With Croatian head coach Aleksandar Petrovic at the helm, Brazil stood atop the AmeriCup podium for the first time since 2009. Alongside their five championship trophies, the Verdeamarela also boasts three silver medals and four bronze.
Turning point
Captain Vitor Benite leaned on his experience and drilled a three-pointer to put Brazil ahead by 10 (55-45) with 1:53 remaining. That basket halted an Argentine rally, as their rivals had trimmed the deficit to seven (52-45) after a 7-0 run.
Earlier in the fourth quarter, Brazil’s second unit (Alexey Borges, Reynan Santos, and Benite) had sparked a 10-2 run to stretch the lead to 52-38 with 5:01 to go. That cushion allowed them to withstand Argentina’s final push and secure the win.
TCL player of the game
Point guard Yago Santos capped a brilliant individual tournament, leading Brazil with 14 points (3 triples) and 5 assists.
Bruno Caboclo followed with 11 points and 7 rebounds. Gui Deodato added 9, Benite chipped in 8 (2 triples), while Lucas Dias and Georginho De Paula anchored the defense. Dias contributed 8 boards, 3 steals, 1 block, and 5 assists, while De Paula finished with 7 rebounds, 5 blocks (a finals record), and 2 steals.
Yago was also named MVP and headlined the All-Star Five alongside teammate Caboclo, Argentina’s Juan Fernández, USA’s Javonte Smart, and Canada’s Kyshawn George.
For Argentina, Francisco Cáffaro scored 11 points and José Vildoza added 8.
Stats don’t lie
The game was so tight offensively that Brazil’s 55 points marked the lowest ever by a champion, while the 102 combined points between the two sides were the fewest in any AmeriCup game.
Brazil shot just 33 percent from the field, including 9-of-35 from long range (26 percent), slightly better than Argentina, which finished at 30 percent (21-69) and only 4-of-27 from beyond the arc (15 percent).
The difference came on defense since Brazil made it tougher for their rivals. Out of Argentina’s 15 turnovers, 9 came off steals. Brazil also recorded 7 blocks (five by De Paula).
Those plays turned into a 12-7 edge in points off turnovers and a 13-3 advantage in fast-break points.
Argentina only went to the free throw line twice, making just one shot, tying the fewest attempts and makes in any AmeriCup game since 2003.
Bottom line
With the victory, Brazil improved its head-to-head record against Argentina at the AmeriCup to 13-9, though Argentina still leads the all-time rivalry.
Two of Brazil’s five titles have now come against their South American nemesis (2005 and 2025).
Argentina, meanwhile, collected its seventh silver medal and now totals 15 podium finishes (the most in history), including three championships and five bronzes.
They said
Coach Petrovic praised his team’s defensive execution after the win:
“Our goal for today’s game was to shut down (José) Vildoza, (Gonzalo) Corbalán, and (Nicolás) Brussino and we did it. They had no chance. Our defense was exceptional,” said the coach. “I’ve always told the team that offense can win you a single game, but to win the title, you have to defend. I’m very happy because we did that, we managed to switch our mindset.”
AmeriCup MVP Yago said that the comeback victory against the United States in the semi-finals gave the team great confidence heading into the final against Argentina.
“For me, we had already been champions in yesterday’s game. Regardless of how today turned out, I didn’t see us losing because of everything we achieved yesterday and the way we were playing— how united we were,” said the 26-year-old guard.
“We need to look at everything each player did here and feel proud of winning a title. And on top of that, against Argentina, which makes it even better— especially in a tournament we had lost before… So yes, we have to celebrate; everyone has to feel proud of what they did. And we have to think about the next steps, because that’s what we want— to put Brazil higher and higher at the top,” he concluded.
Final standings
1. Brazil
2. Argentina
3. United States
4. Canada
5. Dominican Republic
6. Puerto Rico
7. Uruguay
8. Colombia
9. Venezuela
10. Nicaragua
11. Bahamas
12. Panama
Based in Liverpool, Beth Lindop is ESPN’s Liverpool correspondent and also covers the WSL and UWCL.
Liverpool have agreed a British-record deal to sign striker Alexander Isak from Newcastle United, sources have told ESPN.
The Premier League champions have had a £125 million ($170m) bid accepted to sign the Sweden international, who is expected to undergo a medical ahead of Monday’s transfer deadline at 7 p.m. BST, 2 p.m. ET.
It brings an end to one of the summer’s most-protracted transfer sagas, with Isak having spent more than a month agitating for a move away from Newcastle.
The 25-year-old did not join the club on their preseason tour of the Far East and has not featured for Eddie Howe’s side this season.
He also released a sensational statement earlier this month in which he claimed promises had been “broken” by the Newcastle hierarchy and insisted a move this summer would be in the best interests of all parties.
Isak is now set to become the most expensive signing in Premier League history, surpassing Chelsea’s Moisés Caicedo who joined the London club for £115m from Brighton & Hove Albion in the summer of 2023.
It marks the second time this summer that Liverpool have broken their club transfer record, with Arne Slot’s side having committed spending an initial £100m – plus a potential £16m in add-ons – to sign Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen in June.
The moon never looks exactly the same from night to night. Its changing appearance is a result of its journey around Earth. This is called the lunar cycle.
The lunar cycle is a series of eight unique phases of the moon’s visibility. The whole cycle takes about 29.5 days, according to NASA, and these different phases happen as the Sun lights up different parts of the moon whilst it orbits Earth.
So, let’s see what’s happening with the moon tonight, Sept. 1.
What is today’s moon phase?
As of Monday, Sept. 1, the moon phase is Waxing Gibbous, and 62% will be lit up to us on Earth, according to NASA’s Daily Moon Observation.
There’s lots to see on the moon’s surface tonight, so lets get into it. With no visual aids, you’ll see the Tycho Crater, the Mare Crisium, and the Mare Tranquillitatis. With binoculars, you’ll also get a glimpse of the Mare Nectaris, the Mare Frigoris, and the Apennine Mountains.
If you have a telescope too, you’ll see so much more. Enjoy glimpses of the Apollo 11, Descartes Highlands, and the Rupes Recta, a 68-mile-long lunar fault line.
When is the next full moon?
The next full moon will be on Sept. 7. The last full moon was on Aug. 9.
Mashable Light Speed
What are moon phases?
According to NASA, moon phases are caused by the 29.5-day cycle of the moon’s orbit, which changes the angles between the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Moon phases are how the moon looks from Earth as it goes around us. We always see the same side of the moon, but how much of it is lit up by the Sun changes depending on where it is in its orbit. This is how we get full moons, half moons, and moons that appear completely invisible. There are eight main moon phases, and they follow a repeating cycle:
New Moon – The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The moon starts losing light on the right side.
Last Quarter (or Third Quarter) – Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
Modi and Xi posed for pictures in Tianjin on Monday
The view from India
Just a few months ago, the armed forces of India and Pakistan were locked in a brief but deadly conflict.
The conflict indirectly involved a third nation – China. Pakistan’s armed forces heavily used China-made equipment, including fighter jets and radar systems.
A senior army officer in Delhi said Beijing also provided “live inputs” to Pakistan on Indian positions.
India didn’t take a public stand against China, but this left many asking if Delhi should continue on the path of normalising relations with Beijing.
Less than six months later, peace talks between the two Asian giants have been turbocharged by decisions taken thousands of miles away in Washington DC.
The Trump administration has imposed 50% tariffs on Indian imports, saying Delhi was being punished for its refusal to stop buying oil from Russia.
Delhi had two clear choices after this stunning onslaught from a trusted ally.
The first was to cave in and stop buying Russian oil. But it has refused to do so, largely because Russia is an “all-weather” ally and giving into pressure doesn’t suit Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strongman image.
The second was to stand firm and seek other opportunities and India appears to have to chosen this option for now.
It’s also pragmatic to look no further when your neighbour is the world’s second-largest economy and a global manufacturing powerhouse.
It was in this context, that Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tianjin over the weekend.
Statements from the two sides were not heavy on details, though they promised to work through their differences to benefit their collective population of 2.8 billion people.
The immediate takeaway from the meeting was the resumption of direct flights between the two countries and making the process of issuing visas simpler.
But beyond the promise of “the elephant and the dragon” coming together, the two countries still have major roadblocks to clear before they are able to engage meaningfully.
Their first challenge comes from their immediate history.
Modi has invested personally in the India-China relationship since coming to power in 2014, visiting the neighbouring country five times until 2018.
But the 2020 border clash put brakes on this momentum and it has taken seven long years for Modi to visit China again.
The key to making further progress will depend on how the two countries deal with their border issues.
Tens of thousands of troops from both countries are still deployed at their contested borders – though there are ongoing talks between their civilian and military leaders to ease the situation.
AFP via Getty Images
The US-imposed 50% tariffs on India has caused some anger
Both Chinese and Indian readouts after the meeting this weekend talked about maintaining peace at the border and “not turning their differences into disputes”.
For India, there is the issue of a burgeoning trade deficit with China, amounting to more than $99bn (£73bn).
Both countries still have high tariffs and duties against each other in many sectors.
Beijing would want India to open its market of 1.4 billion people to Chinese products, but Delhi would be wary of doing that without addressing the deficit.
The outreach to China, which started with Modi meeting Xi in Kazan last year, may have been supercharged by Trump tariffs, but ground realities for India remain unchanged.
The Modi-Xi meeting is being seen as part of India’s policy of “strategic autonomy” but it will also cause more geopolitical challenges for Delhi.
India is due to host the Quad (which includes Japan, Australia and the US) summit later this year. The forum was largely seen as a challenge to China’s dominance in the Indo-Pacific region.
It’s not clear if Trump will attend, but if he does and says something against China, it will immediately test the renewed synergy between Delhi and Beijing.
Delhi is also part of several other multilateral forums that are perceived as anti-China and anti-Russia.
How Delhi plays its strategic autonomy in the next few months will very much influence the direction India-China ties take.
For now, it’s clear that India-US ties are at an all-time low. A Trump aide recently called the Russia-Ukraine conflict “Modi’s war”.
Delhi has also consistently denied that Trump played any role in the ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May – this has become a constant irritant for the US president.
Despite this, India has refrained from imposing retaliatory tariffs against the US and has left the door ajar for further negotiations. After all, the US is India’s biggest trading partner.
Will going closer to China help India’s negotiations with the US or will it have the opposite impact?
This is the question that will likely dominate geopolitical discussions in Delhi and beyond in the coming months.
Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Tensions ran high following the Galwan Valley incident in 2020 – but they have since cooled down somewhat
The view from China
When Xi Jinping met Narendra Modi he used what has become his favourite catchphrase for China-India relations: “The dragon and the elephant should come together”.
During “this period of transformation,” he added that it was vital for the world’s most populous nations to be friends and good neighbours.
In a case of spectacular timing, Prime Minister Modi’s visit has coincided with Donald Trump’s tariffs of up to 50% on India exports to the US.
This represents quite a hit on the country’s economy so New Delhi would be looking around for other business partners.
Look no further than right here, Xi may well say, as his administration attempts to rebuild from the wreckage of China-India relations following years of tension between the two.
And, if their official readouts are anything to go by, Modi’s attendance at the Tianjin Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation seems to have paid off.
His published comments to Xi were much more specific than the those coming the other way.
There is now a very good window for Beijing and New Delhi to repair their strained relationship.
China’s leader knows that Donald Trump’s tariff onslaught is pushing India away from the United States and that this great economic rival needs other partnerships.
Considerable obstacles remain.
They include China’s backing of India’s key rival Pakistan; interaction of all types has been in the doldrums; angry rhetoric from both governments (over many years) has created a climate of suspicion between the Asian heavyweights and their high-mountain border dispute has stirred nationalist sentiment on both sides of the frontier.
However, with the latter of these, this meeting would appear to confirm that pressure has already eased.
Last Thursday China’s Defence Ministry spokesman was talking up the success of discussions between the representatives of China and India aimed at stopping the clashes along their disputed border.
He spoke of “win-win cooperation” and celebrating the 75th anniversary of ties between the two nations.
Xi also knows that the symbolism of having Modi in China right now is considerable, that images of them shaking hands and standing side-by-by side – as the Trump tariffs on India kick in – can be a powerful propaganda tool which is made even more significant by the fact that this is a multilateral gathering.
The two will not only be joined by Vladimir Putin but by the other SCO governments like Turkey (a member of Nato), Saudi Arabia (a key US ally), Iran (a key enemy of the US) as well as Qatar, Egypt and Pakistan.
And all of this in the days before Beijing holds a massive display of military might with a parade through the heart of the capital.
