Is India sending message to 'China show' as Narendra Modi skips SCO summit?

Zhang Baohui, a professor of international relations at Lingnan University in Hong Kong who specializes in Asia-Pacific studies, said Modi’s absence clearly showed that India was distancing itself from the SCO.

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, and a state visit at the invitation of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Photo: Xinhua — Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Astana, Kazakhstan on Tuesday for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and a state visit at the invitation of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Photo: Xinhua

India, which joined the group along with rival Pakistan in 2017, hosted the annual summit virtually last year, a move that was interpreted by many as an attempt by India to avoid direct interactions with China and Russia, both of which have strained relations with the West.

“A more likely cause could be India’s broader strategic realignment. It has strengthened its alignment with the West and weakened its relations with the non-Western camp,” Zhang said. “This is particularly evident in India’s relations with the SCO, which is seen by the world as a non-Western political grouping largely influenced by China and Russia.”

Amit Ranjan, a research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, said Modi’s absence from the summit was likely due to busy domestic work and travel schedules.

Last month, the Indian president was re-elected for a third term, but his party saw its majority in parliament reduced. Modi, who has just returned to India from the G7 summit in Italy, will travel to Russia next week to meet Putin.

Ranjan suggested that Modi might want to avoid “crossing paths” with Xi at the SCO as relations between their nations remain strained since they last met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in South Africa last year.

At the same time, India appears to be increasingly aligning itself with U.S. strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, while competing with Beijing for leadership in the Global South. The two Asian powers have also clashed over a long-standing border dispute.

“India already knew before joining the SCO that it was China’s business,” Ranjan said.

“India’s foreign policy is more based on its national interest… India may feel that it will gain more by engaging with Japan, the US or Russia than by engaging directly with China.”

Liu Zongyi, secretary-general of the China and South Asia Center of the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies, said India had little interest in improve relationships with China, which have been largely frozen due to their border dispute.

“(Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam) Jaishankar has made it clear that his priority will be to resolve the border disputes with China… but China-India relations include many aspects, not just the border issues,” Liu said. “In this context, even if the border issue cannot be completely resolved, we can definitely develop other relations.”

Relations between the two countries have suffered a major deterioration following a deadly clash between their armies in Galwan Valley In 2020, the two nuclear-armed countries discussed a disputed stretch of their shared border in the Himalayan region. Since then, the two countries have held more than 20 rounds of border talks, with little progress.

Meanwhile, Beijing and New Delhi have yet to resume direct flights after a four-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and journalists from each country remain banned from flying to the other.

Ranjan sees some positives, however. He said Beijing’s recent appointment of Xu Feihong as the new ambassador to India, a post left vacant for 18 months, it signaled that both sides wanted to improve relations.

He said more diplomacy was needed and would be best served by meetings between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian President Jaishankar to create a “conducive” environment for a later meeting of the leaders.

“So the channels of communication are there,” he said. “They have to reach out to the lower levels… if that is not done, it will be very difficult for two leaders to meet.”