Both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are probably going to be in the same room again in a few months.
The two presidents’ intentions to conduct private discussions and work to improve the tense relations between their nations are yet uncertain.
There is no prospect of a Modi-Xi meeting taking place on the sidelines due to New Delhi’s last-minute decision to make this month’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit virtual, according to dubious Indian foreign policy analysts.
Both presidents are scheduled to attend the G20 presidents’ Summit in Delhi a fortnight after the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, which runs from August 22 to 24.
The 2019 BRICS meeting in Brazil was the last diplomatic exchange between Modi and Xi. In contrast, Xi has seen US President Joe Biden twice in the last two years despite their severely damaged relations, and a third meeting seems to be on the horizon.
Analysts assert that a meeting between Modi and Xi is becoming more and more crucial in light of their ongoing border standoff and diplomatic spats, which have only served to exacerbate tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors as they continue to bolster the Line of Actual Control with infrastructure, troops, heavy artillery, and light high-altitude tanks.
Foreign policy watchers are now closely monitoring if the presidents’ next high-profile meetings can ultimately thaw the ice between them after reports that talks between military chiefs have not produced any results.
a diplomatic halt?
The leaders’ current absence of face-to-face interaction is in sharp contrast to their earlier friendship, which saw them meet 18 times between 2014, when Modi became prime minister, and June 2020, as well as host two informal summits in 2018 and 2019.
The bilateral meetings were canceled due to clashes between Indian and Chinese forces in the Galwan Valley, a disputed border area close to India’s Ladakh.
The likelihood of a meeting between Modi and Xi taking place in conjunction with the BRICS conference next month, according to BR Deepak, a professor of Chinese and China studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, is “very high.”
According to Deepak, such a gathering may spark negotiations to end the standoff.
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