India has sent an official invitation to Chinese President Xi Jinping for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, scheduled for July, a report has said.
Chinese charge d’affaires Ma Jia confirming the invite said that the decision on whether the Chinese President will attend the SCO meeting was still awaited as the date of the summit has not been finalised yet.
According to a report in Times of India, the SCO summit will likely be held in July. The meeting comes two months before the G-20 summit where India will try to forge a consensus on the Ukraine issue.
Ma Jia said that the consensus would be difficult as prominent security issues were being taken up on economic and financial platforms. She indicated that consensus at G-20 on the Ukraine issue would be difficult as the situation had “intensified” since the Bali Declaration last year.
She added that Xi Jinping received an official invite to the G20 summit in September. India currently holds the presidency for both SCO and G20, scheduled for September 9-10.
Reports said that India proposed the SCO summit to be held on June 25, but now it wants to be postponed to July 5 as PM Modi is likely to travel to the US in June-end.
Ma Jia said she was optimistic about the talks to resolve the military standoff at the border with India and added that neither side wants a war or confrontation.
“The situation is very complicated and that’s why we are having the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Cooperation (WMCC) talks and also the senior commanders’ meeting,” Ma said.
“There are difficulties, but we are confident that neither side wants war or confrontation. Both sides want relations to improve. The leaders had earlier reached an important consensus. We are looking at ties from a strategic and long-term perspective,’’ she added.
PM Modi and Xi Jinping did not have a bilateral meeting since the standoff at the LAC in Ladakh on April-May 2020. Though the two leaders shook hands and exchanged pleasantries last year in Bali during G20 meet, but there was no formal agreement.
The SCO member countries are India, Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Founded over 20 years ago, it is a crucial regional organisation that aims to promote economic, political, and military cooperation among its members.
The organisation covers over 60% of the Eurasian landmass, 40% of the world population and 30% of the global GDP.
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