Will Prime Minister Modi and President Xi meet in Samarkand?

One is not sure if Modi and Xi will have any personal meeting in Samarkand. Any such meeting, if it takes place at all, is highly unlikely to serve any meaningful purpose.

Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit of Heads of State, to be held in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) on September 15-16? Will he meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the summit's sidelines? Will this help in improving ties between India and China?

Observers say Prime Minister Modi is likely to attend the Samarkand summit. There was a clear hint to this effect on the eve of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's visit to Tashkent for the SCO Foreign Ministers' meeting in July this year. The Ministry of External Affairs said then that they had "discussed the preparations for the forthcoming SCO Summit."

The SCO is highly significant for India. New Delhi needs to keep a close watch on the new developments taking place within the group. At the Samarkand summit, Iran is to be inducted as the new permanent member of SCO. Currently, the SCO has eight members - China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, and Pakistan. Iran was earlier one of the observers of the SCO.

At the end of the upcoming summit in Samarkand, India will be assuming the group's presidency from September 2022 for one year. In 2023, India will be hosting the summit. New Delhi needs to guide the group's course of action. The region has an enormous transport and transit potential. The creation of new international rail and road corridors in Eurasia is acquiring a strategic dimension today.

Chinese President Xi is likely to attend the Samarkand summit. He is all set to meet Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on September 14 and sign a number of agreements. This is likely to be followed by his attendance at the SCO Summit in Samarkand.

One is, however, not sure if Modi and Xi will have any personal meeting in Samarkand. Any such meeting, if it takes place at all, is highly unlikely to serve any meaningful purpose . The post-Galwan chill is intact in relations between India and China. China does not seem to appreciate the need to resolve its border conflict with India. Beijing still attempts to portray ties between China and India as "normal," despite the continuing friction between the two nations on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Our External Affairs Minister Jaishankar has made it clear that normalcy in India's ties with China is predicated on the resolution of the border friction between the two nations.

(Jagdish N. Singh is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. He is also Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, New York)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of OneIndia and OneIndia does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.