Xi, Sharif to attend virtual SCO meet hosted by India

New Delhi: Chinese President Xi Jinping will join the virtual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit to be hosted by India on July 4, with Beijing saying on Friday that regional countries are looking to the bloc to play a bigger role in ensuring regional security.

India, which is chairing SCO for the first time since it joined the grouping in 2017, announced last month it would host the summit in a virtual format. The meeting is expected to be joined by the leaders of China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran will be admitted as the ninth member of the SCO at the summit.

Xi will attend the SCO Summit via video-conference from Beijing at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and “deliver important remarks”, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

Mao Ning, another spokesperson of China’s foreign ministry, told a media briefing in Beijing that other countries are hoping the SCO will play a larger role in security and development. Xi and the other participating leaders will chart the course for future growth of the SCO, she said.

“In a world marked by change and disorder and fraught with increasing instability, uncertainties and unpredictable factors, regional countries as well as other members of the international community look to the SCO to play a bigger role in safeguarding regional security and promoting common development,” Mao said while replying to a question on China’s expectations from the summit.

China, as a founding member of SCO, views the grouping as a priority in its foreign affairs and will work with other members on the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilisation Initiative – all proposed by Beijing – to build an “even closer SCO community with a shared future”, she said.

In a related development, Pakistan too announced that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will participate in the SCO Summit. SCO leaders will deliberate on important global and regional issues and chart the direction for future cooperation, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said.

The SCO Summit is being held at a time when relations between India and China are at an all-time low because of the dragging military standoff on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which entered its fourth year in May. External affairs minister S Jaishankar this week described the situation on the LAC as “abnormal” and said the state of the border determines the state of the overall relationship.

The Indian side has brushed aside China’s call to separate the border standoff from overall ties in order to ensure forward movement in areas such as trade and investment.

The SCO foreign ministers’ meeting in Goa in early May had become the stage for an intense face-off between Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari over Kashmir and terrorism. Bhutto Zardari had spoken about “weaponising terrorism for diplomatic point-scoring” while addressing the SCO meeting, prompting Jaishankar to accuse him of being a “justifier [and] spokesperson of a terrorism industry”.

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin has described Modi as Russia’s “big friend” and spoken about the “truly impressive effect” of the “Make in India” initiative on India’s economy. Putin, also expected to join the SCO Summit, made the remarks while addressing a forum organised by Russia’s Agency for Strategic Initiatives in Moscow on Thursday.

“Our friends in India and our big friend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, launched the ‘Make in India’ initiative several years ago. It has had a truly impressive effect on the Indian economy. It would do no harm to emulate what is working well...,” Putin was quoted as saying by RT News.

While crediting India’s leadership for creating a model for developing local manufacturing capabilities and wooing foreign investors, Putin said Russia should make its products more convenient and functional. He held up India as an example while discussing opportunities for Russian companies in the wake of Western sanctions.

This was one of Putin’s first public appearances following the failed rebellion by the Wagner Private Military Company, the mercenary group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. The brief mutiny marked the biggest challenge to Putin’s grip on power in nearly two decades.