Beginning on August 29, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will go to China and Japan for four days. At Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s request, PM Modi will go to Japan from August 29 to August 30 to attend the 15th India-Japan Annual Summit.
This will be PM Modi’s first summit with Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba and his ninth trip to Japan. At President Xi’s invitation, Prime Minister Modi will visit China from Japan from August 31 to September 1 in order to attend the SCO Summit in Tianjin.
In addition to India and China, the SCO has ten other members: Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. On August 31, PM Modi will meet with Xi Jinping. The heads of ten international organisations and around 20 foreign leaders are expected to attend the SCO Summit, according to China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Bin.
On the fringes of the SCO Summit, Modi is anticipated to meet one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a number of Central Asian leaders.
Who all are attending the SCO summit?
Among the foreign leaders to attend the SCO summit in Tianjin are:
1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi
2. Russian President Vladimir Putin
3. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and
4. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan
5. Myanmar’s military chief Min Aung Hlaing
6. Nepal’s Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli
7. Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto
8. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim,
9. Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif
10. Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu
The SCO meeting takes place against the backdrop of US President Donald Trump’s “America First” tariff policy, which has caused tensions in international commerce by targeting nations like China and India. Trump levied high tariffs on a variety of Indian goods, recently raising levies to 50%, citing unfair trade practices, a lack of reciprocal market access, and, more recently, India’s purchase of cheap Russian oil.