Focus on trade, ties as PM Modi set to meet Xi today

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to Tianjin on Saturday, a day before his proposed meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping — an engagement, which would determine if New Delhi and Beijing could set aside their strategic rivalry and reset bilateral ties in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s tariff tirade.

Modi is visiting Tianjin in northern China to attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. He is scheduled to have a bilateral meeting with Xi on Sunday, a few hours before the Chinese President is likely to host an official reception for the SCO leaders.

"Landed in Tianjin, China. Looking forward to deliberations at the SCO summit and meeting various world leaders," Modi posted on X as he landed in Tianjin. The PM last visited China in June 2018, when Xi had hosted the SCO summit in Qingdao.

Modi had confirmed before leaving New Delhi that he looked forward to meeting Xi. He would also have a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The PM's proposed meetings with Xi and Putin come even as New Delhi’s relations with Washington have come under stress with Trump imposing a 50% tariff on all exports from India to the US for India’s energy imports from Russia.

Modi is set to attend the SCO summit – often called a 'counterweight to NATO' – at a time when Trump’s tariff tirade against New Delhi cast a shadow of uncertainty over the Quad conclave proposed to be held in India. The Quad is a four-nation coalition comprising India, Japan, Australia and the US, which came together to counter the hegemonic aspirations of China.

Modi and Xi had last met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit at Kazan in Russia on October 23, 2024, just two days after the stand-off between the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) had come to an end with a deal. The four-and-a-half-year-long stand-off had brought the relations between the two Himalayan neighbours to a new low.

The two leaders had agreed last year that stable, predictable and amicable bilateral relations between India and China would have a positive impact on regional and global peace and would also contribute to a multi-polar Asia and a multi-polar world.