China welcomes PM Modi’s planned visit to attend SCO Summit

Beijing: China on Friday welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s planned visit to the Tianjin Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to be held later this month, expressing hope that the event would be a “gathering of solidarity, friendship and fruitful results”.

Prime Minister Modi is expected to travel to China later this month after a gap of over seven years to attend the annual summit of the SCO, people familiar with the matter in Delhi said this week.

“China welcomes Prime Minister Modi to China for the SCO Tianjin Summit,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said while responding to a question on reports about Modi’s visit to China to attend the Tianjin summit to be held from August 31 to September 1.

“We believe that with the concerted effort of all parties, the Tianjin summit will be a gathering of solidarity, friendship and fruitful results, and the SCO will enter a new stage of high-quality development featuring greater solidarity, coordination, dynamism and productiveness,” Guo said.

Guo said that leaders of over 20 countries, including all member states of the SCO and heads of 10 international organisations, will attend relevant events.

“The SCO Tianjin Summit will be the largest summit in scale since the establishment of the SCO,” the spokesperson added.

Modi is expected to embark on a visit to Japan around August 29, and after concluding the trip, he will travel to the Chinese city of Tianjin for the SCO summit.

There is no official confirmation yet on Modi’s two-nation visit to Japan and China.

Modi last visited China in June 2018 to attend the SCO summit. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India in October 2019 for the second “informal summit”. However, the relationship came under stress due to the eastern Ladakh border face-off.

The military standoff in eastern Ladakh began in May 2020 and the clashes at the Galwan Valley in June that year resulted in a severe strain in ties.