Printed On 31 Aug 2025
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has informed China’s President Xi Jinping that he’s dedicated to bettering bilateral ties, indicating a rising closeness to Beijing solely 5 days after america slapped steep tariffs on Indian items.
“We’re dedicated to progressing our relationships based mostly on mutual respect, belief and sensitivities,” Modi informed Xi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit that begins in Tianjin on Sunday.
Modi is in China for the primary time in seven years to attend the two-day SCO summit, together with Russian President Vladimir Putin and different leaders from Asia and the Center East, in a present of World South solidarity.
The Indian chief posted a video clip of his encounter with the Chinese language president on his X account.
Sharing my remarks throughout assembly with President Xi Jinping. https://t.co/pw1OAMBWdc
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 31, 2025
Xi additionally pledged to resolve border variations with India and bolster cooperation. He mentioned he hoped the Tianjin assembly will “additional elevate” and “promote the sustained, wholesome and secure improvement of bilateral relations,” in line with state broadcaster CCTV.
The 2 sides ought to “not let the border challenge outline the general China-India relationship,” Xi mentioned, including that financial improvement for each international locations ought to be their foremost focus.
“So long as they continue to be dedicated to the overarching aim of being companions, not rivals, and offering improvement alternatives, not threats, China-India relations will flourish and transfer ahead steadily,” Xi mentioned.
‘Transferring nearer to Beijing’
Modi’s assertion got here after longtime ally, the US, imposed punishing 50 % tariffs on Indian items on Wednesday over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, a transfer which will have accelerated his nation’s ongoing thawing of relations with China.
Reporting from Tianjin, the place the two-day SCO summit is being held, Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu mentioned Modi had “made the calculation that he ought to be shifting nearer to Beijing”, indicating that the times of the US utilizing India as a counterweight in opposition to China had been over.
In Sunday’s assembly, Modi mentioned an environment of “peace and stability” had been created on the disputed Himalayan border, the place Indian and Chinese language troops clashed in 2020.
Modi mentioned India and China had reached an settlement on border administration and added that direct flights between the international locations, suspended since 2020, had been “being resumed”.
Al Jazeera’s Yu mentioned the lethal clashes had marked a “low level” in relations between the nuclear-armed strategic rivals, however that relations had improved in current months, with officers “speaking and assembly persistently concerning the border” and different points.
In current months, China has allowed Indian pilgrims to go to Buddhist websites in Tibet, and each international locations have lifted reciprocal vacationer visa restrictions.
China had agreed to carry export curbs on uncommon earths, fertilisers and tunnel boring machines this month throughout a key go to to India by China’s Overseas Minister Wang Yi.
This month, Chinese language Ambassador to India Xu Feihong mentioned his nation opposed Washington’s steep tariffs on India and would “firmly stand” with New Delhi.
Highly effective bloc
Modi and Putin are among the many greater than 20 world leaders attending the SCO summit.
China and Russia have typically touted the SCO as a substitute for the NATO army alliance. This 12 months’s summit is the primary since US President Donald Trump returned to the White Home.
“China has lengthy sought to current the SCO as a non-Western-led energy bloc that promotes a brand new kind of worldwide relations, which, it claims, is extra democratic,” mentioned Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological College.
Established in 2001, the SCO contains China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus, with 16 extra international locations affiliated as observers or “dialogue companions”.
Mixed, SCO members symbolize 42 % of the worldwide inhabitants, or greater than three billion folks, and nearly 1 / 4 of the planet’s landmass.
The more and more highly effective bloc accounts for 23 % of world gross home product, value about $24 trillion a 12 months. And it controls about 20 % of the world’s oil and nearly 44 % of world gasoline reserves.
