India committed to improving ties with China, Modi tells Xi

TIANJIN (Reuters): India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said New Delhi was committed to improving ties with Beijing in a key meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping on Sunday, as both countries resolved to put aside differences from a years-long border standoff.

Modi is in China for the first time in seven years to attend a two-day meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), along with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders from Central, South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East in a show of Global South solidarity.

“We are committed to progressing our relations based on mutual respect, trust and sensitivities,” Modi told Xi during the meeting on the sidelines of the summit, according to a video clip posted on the Indian leader’s official X account.

The bilateral meeting took place five days after Washington imposed punishing 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods due to New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil. Analysts say Xi and Modi are looking to present a united front against Western pressure.

Modi said an atmosphere of “peace and stability” has been created on their disputed Himalayan border, the site of a prolonged military standoff after deadly troop clashes in 2020, which froze most areas of cooperation between the nuclear-armed strategic rivals.

He added that an agreement had been reached between both nations regarding border management, without giving details.

“We must … not let the border issue define the overall China-India relationship,” Chinese state media outlet Xinhua reported Xi as saying.

China-India ties could be “stable and far-reaching” if both sides focused on viewing each other as partners instead of rivals, Xi added.

The bilateral talks were held at the Tianjin Guest House, an intimate venue surrounded by lush greenery.

Security guards positioned themselves around and inside the venue, their eyes scanning reporters and guests carefully, as Chinese diplomats hurried through the halls.

Large sections of Tianjin were closed to traffic, with a significant police presence deployed around the city.

Official posters promoting the SCO lined the streets, displaying words such as “mutual benefit” and “equality” written in Chinese and Russian.

Both leaders had a breakthrough meeting in Russia last year after reaching a border patrol agreement, setting off a tentative thaw in ties that has accelerated in recent weeks as New Delhi seeks to hedge against renewed tariff threats from Washington.

Direct flights between both nations, which have been suspended since 2020, are “being resumed”, Modi added, without providing a timeframe.

China had agreed to lift export curbs on rare earths, fertilisers and tunnel boring machines this month during a key visit to India by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

China opposes Washington’s steep tariffs on India and will “firmly stand with India”, Chinese Ambassador to India Xu Feihong said this month.

For decades, Washington painstakingly cultivated ties with New Delhi in the hope that it would act as a regional counterweight to Beijing.

In recent months, China has allowed Indian pilgrims to visit Buddhist sites in Tibet, and both countries have lifted reciprocal tourist visa restrictions.

“Both India and China are engaged in what is likely to be a lengthy and fraught process of defining a new equilibrium in the relationship,” said Manoj Kewalramani, a Sino-Indian relations expert at the Takshashila Institution think tank in Bengaluru.

However, other long-term irritants remain in the relationship.

China is India’s largest bilateral trade partner, but the long-running trade deficit — a persistent source of frustration for Indian officials — reached a record $99.2 billion this year.

Meanwhile, a planned Chinese mega-dam in Tibet has sparked fears of mass water diversion that could reduce water flows on the major Brahmaputra River by up to 85pc in the dry season, according to Indian government estimates.

India also hosts the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader whom Beijing views as a dangerous separatist influence. Pakistan, with which India had a brief military conflict in May, also benefits from staunch Chinese economic, diplomatic and military support.

Talks on the sidelines

The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. Another 16 countries are affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners”.

More than 20 leaders, including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are attending the bloc’s largest meeting since its founding in 2001.

Putin is expected to hold talks on Monday with Erdogan and Pezeshkian about the Ukraine conflict and Tehran’s nuclear programme, respectively.

The Russian president needs “all the benefits of SCO as a player on the world stage and also the support of the second largest economy in the world”, said Lim Tai Wei, a professor and East Asia expert at Japan’s Soka University.

“Russia is also keen to win over India, and India’s trade frictions with the United States presents this opportunity,” Lim told AFP.

Many of the assembled leaders will be in Beijing on Wednesday to witness the military parade, which will also be attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Xi yesterday began welcoming leaders, including Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Egyptian Premier Moustafa Madbouly.

China and Russia have used the SCO — sometimes touted as a counter to the Western-dominated Nato military alliance — to deepen ties with Central Asian states.