Narendra Modi’s China trip, to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) Summit in Tianjin, may exhibit New Delhi’s attempt to get closer to Beijing, putting the historical bitterness between the two neighbours to oblivion, but the reality seems quite different.
On the one hand, Mr Modi’s China trip isn’t an indication of a renewed Sino-India friendship in the backdrop of US President Donald Trump imposing punitive tariffs on Indian imports; on the other hand, India isn’t quitting anti-China blocs it has been a member of for years.
Mr Modi’s visit to Japan, before the SCO summit in Tianjin, unveils disturbing facts that indicate India won’t be a trustworthy partner for China in the long run.
Mr Modi’s China trip, to attend the SCO Summit, comes amid complex geopolitical developments; however, it’s not a pathbreaking diplomatic endeavour if seen objectively.
Modi’s China tour for SCO Summit pre-planned
Mr Modi’s trip to China to attend the SCO Summit 2025 was pre-planned.
The annual event is crucial for India and other members of the bloc, which consists of ten countries and several observer nations and bodies.
The prime minister had skipped the SCO Summit 2024, held in Astana.
While External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar attended the 2024 summit, it was claimed that the prime minister had skipped the event to avoid irking the US-led collective West and to avoid facing Chinese President Xi Jinping.
However, after this, Russian President Vladimir Putin broke the diplomatic ice between India and China during the BRICS Summit in October 2024, where the Indian prime minister and the Chinese president met on the sidelines.
It was the first such meeting in over six years, following the deadly clashes between the two countries that ended up killing 20 Indian Army soldiers in the eastern Ladakh region in May 2020.
Mr Modi’s China trip, to attend the SCO Summit at Tianjin, was planned according to the October 2024 roadmap, and not as a reciprocal measure to Mr Trump’s tariff imposition.
The efforts to enhance Sino-Indian bilateral relations come from the realisation that India’s manufacturing and other key sectors will continue to suffer and lose to global competition, unless it relies on Chinese technology and equipment, at least until the country builds its own capabilities.
However, while doing these, India has been careful in maintaining its presence in the anti-China military blocs like the QUAD and recently emphasised its military ties with Japan against Beijing.
SCO: Modi’s bargaining chip
On the one hand, Mr Modi’s government has always used India’s membership in crucial multilateral platforms like the BRICS and SCO to project itself as a major, evolving Global South power; on the other hand, it also uses these platforms as bargaining chips while dealing with the US.
India’s membership in bodies like BRICS and SCO leverages it against the West, as it displays the possibility of aligning with China and Russia to draw Washington’s attention.
However, while Mr Modi has been using India’s presence on these platforms to bargain with the West, especially the SCO membership, it has distanced itself from the collective stance of these bodies whenever it felt such an act would offend the West and its allies.
Moreover, India has used its memberships in BRICS and SCO to offset and balance against China’s influence.
So, India remains sceptical of the comprehensive security partnership that China and Russia have offered to the SCO members.
It opposes China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and has distanced itself from the critical remarks against Israeli attacks on Gaza.
India wants to remain embedded in the US-led “rule-based order” to ensure its investments and markets in the West remain safe.
Rather than helping SCO members build a robust security partnership, India has taken refuge in the West-led military blocs like QUAD, which aim to contain China.
Mr Modi’s visit to Japan, before China, underscored New Delhi’s priorities in the region, under the garb of multipolarity.
West’s Trojan horse
Several geopolitical experts have accused India of being a Trojan horse for the West inside the SCO and other multilateral platforms.
There are several reasons behind this allegation.
One of the major reasons India is accused of being a Trojan horse in these blocs is that it has consistently shown a lack of interest in taking part in crucial geopolitical moves, like the BRICS bloc’s de-dollarisation, SCO’s collective security framework and distancing itself from condemning the US-Israel nexus’s mayhem in Gaza.
As Indian oligarchs, whose interests Mr Modi’s critics accuse him of representing, have greater financial exposures in the US and the West, New Delhi remains tilted towards Washington in the geopolitical arena.
This makes India an unreliable partner in the two blocs, especially as the anti-Western nations form the bulk of these platforms.
However, although Mr Xi and Mr Putin have been trying to wean India away from the West, Mr Modi’s visit to China to attend the SCO Summit in Tianjin resulted in several diplomatic embarrassments.
Mr Modi’s troubles in China during SCO Summit
During Mr Modi’s trip, he will have to face a few diplomatic ignominy in China.
Firstly, India’s pro-government mainstream media and Mr Modi’s loyalists on social media have turned his visit to China for the SCO Summit into an event centring on him.
However, it’s not so.
Apart from Mr Modi, Mr Putin and Mr Xi, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu, Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, General Secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party Central Committee and Lao president Thongloun Sisoulith, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, have taken part in the SCO Summit in Tianjin.
This means, Mr Modi, despite representing one of the major countries, couldn’t steal the limelight despite wearing a contrasting colour attire vis-à-vis other dignitaries.
However, lacking the limelight isn’t Mr Modi’s biggest trouble. Standing out as an odd member became a problem for Indian foreign policymakers.
The Pakistan spectre
On May 7th, India launched cross-border strikes against neighbouring Pakistan—under its much-hyped “Operation Sindoor”—targeting alleged terrorist training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as well as Pakistani territory.
Pakistan also retaliated, resulting in a three-day-long border skirmish that ended in a sudden ceasefire that Mr Trump later took credit for.
Now, India has blamed Pakistan for the terrorist attack that killed 25 Indian tourists and a local guide in Jammu & Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22nd.
India has sent its parliamentarians across countries to uphold its stance and to isolate Pakistan as a sponsor of terrorism.
However, New Delhi’s failure to isolate Pakistan highlights itself as Mr Sharif joins the SCO Summit in Tianjin, along with Mr Modi.
This is the first multilateral meeting where the two are present together after Operation Sindoor.
While there isn’t any scope for a bilateral meeting between Mr Modi and Mr Sharif on the sidelines, the fact that Pakistan isn’t isolated is quite apparent.
While India relied more on the US-led collective West and Israel over the years, Pakistan has not only strengthened its ties with China, its traditional partner, but also enhanced its bilateral ties with Russia and Iran.
Both countries have shared strong relations with India and have supported it on several issues.
However, as India remains a highly unreliable ally and is prone to tilt towards the US-Israel-West lobby on almost all major global issues, countries like Iran and Russia have already created their buffers by strengthening ties with Pakistan.
With both countries trying to sell their fuel and military hardware, India, which has no long-term bandwidth to survive US sanctions, can’t be a long-term ally.
Moreover, India’s unapologetic support for Israel and its silence throughout the ongoing massacre in Gaza, its silence on Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Syria, as well as its reluctance to acknowledge the popular government in Yemen, have created major fissures in India-Iran ties.
Lately, India’s sharp condemnation of Iranian Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamanei, following his critical remarks on the condition of Indian Muslims, as well as an Indian media outlet’s libellous claims regarding the octogenarian leader, have soured the bilateral relations between the two.
Similarly, India’s increasing reliance on Israeli and Western weapons, military technology and defence systems has raised doubts in Moscow’s minds regarding the sustainability of the two countries’ historic strong ties.
Pakistan has jumped into the fray to utilise this chasm and fill the void.
This has caused more inconvenience for the Indian foreign policymakers.
Moreover, Pakistan’s attempt to woo Bangladesh, where the pro-Indian Sheikh Hasina’s government was ousted through a massive nationwide uprising in monsoon 2024, has also created a new headache for Indian diplomats.
How can India isolate Pakistan globally, if its attempts failed in even a platform it has been a member of for eight years?
Badblood with Türkiye
One of the extraordinary optics at the SCO Summit on Sunday, August 31st, was Mr Modi firmly shaking hands, followed by a pat on the back, with Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
This handshake took place amid simmering tensions between the two countries as Mr Erdoğan’s government reportedly aligned itself with Pakistan during Operation Sindoor.
India’s state-sponsored media reports claim that Türkiye supplied around 350 Bayraktar TB2 and YIHA drones to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor.
Ankara had also allegedly supplied drone operators to assist the Pakistani Army in coordinating attacks on India’s forward positions and convoys.
Türkiye’s support for Pakistan prompted Mr Modi to visit Cyprus earlier this year to deliver a covert message to Mr Erdoğan.
Moreover, it stoked anti-Türkiye sentiments in the South Asian country, resulting in boycott calls aimed at Türkish imports.
Türkiye isn’t merely supporting Pakistan; in the last one year, ever since Ms Hasina fled to India, Ankara has strengthened its ties with the interim government in Bangladesh, leveraging the Islamist forces it funds.
To increase Mr Modi’s troubles, Mr Erdoğan emphasised that Ankara and Islamabad will deepen their ties during the SCO sidelines.
Handling the dragon
Another major problem for India is to address the elephant in the room.
Though Mr Xi used the idiom “dance of the elephant and the dragon” to exemplify Sino-Indian friendship, the elephant in the room is indeed China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that China and India are cooperation partners, not rivals, and that the two countries are each other's development opportunities rather than threats: Xinhua (Video: CCTV) #SCO2025 pic.twitter.com/IrNalHFxoK
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) August 31, 2025
Following Mr Trump’s footsteps in 2020, India refused to accept Chinese technology for its 5G network building and also took punitive actions against Huawei and other Chinese companies.
Mr Modi’s BJP had stoked a massive anti-China xenophobia across India following the May 2020 Galwan clash, where 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a skirmish with the Chinese.
Although Mr Modi’s government took an unofficial anti-China stance, the bilateral trade remained stable, and China remains one of the top trade partners of India.
Still, the restrictions on several technological imports from China harmed Indian businesses and their capacities. This forced Indian corporates to exert pressure on Mr Modi to allow a greater inflow of Chinese technology, resulting in a diplomatic breakthrough during October 2024.
However, China’s support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, the much-hyped capabilities of Chinese fighter jets that reportedly shot down the Rafale jets, which Mr Modi purchased from France under a controversial deal, caused ignominy to New Delhi.
Despite this, when Mr Modi emphasises restoring Sino-India friendship, it shows a major retreat from his previous hyper-jingoistic position.
It also showed that his Make in India and “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” (self-reliant India) schemes have failed to boost India’s domestic capabilities due to a lack of adequate technological innovation, capital and markets.
Where is India in the SCO?
While Mr Modi’s China visit receives amplification from India’s mainstream state-sponsored media as a major diplomatic breakthrough after facing Mr Trump’s tariff wrath, there exists a lackadaisical attitude regarding the SCO Summit itself.
According to the Chinese Marxist journal Qiushi, China saw a 2.7% trade increase with SCO members in 2024. Total volume reached $512.4bn.
India’s total trade with SCO member countries approximated $212bn in 2024.
China accounts for $127bn, with Russia contributing $70bn. Other countries follow with smaller shares.
Low trade volume stems from the prime minister’s government’s inability to access Central Asian markets.
This results from refusing and opposing China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Apart from BRI opposition, alignments with anti-China forces in the Indo-Pacific make India a pariah within the crucial bloc.
This positioning hinders India’s economic scope significantly.
The prime minister has not visited China to strengthen India’s SCO role substantially.
His goal remains short-term— buying time until India-American ties reset following potential Ukraine peace deals.
Mr Modi ensures India distances itself from criticising the Gaza genocide, while China and Russia’s security framework efforts remain stalled.
Despite representing the world’s most populous country, India’s SCO role remains highly disruptive, according to experts.
Mr Modi’s China visit will provide optics that New Delhi can use as bargaining chips with America. Yet this positioning will not change ground realities or jumpstart India’s crisis-ridden economy fundamentally.
The visit brings India a bouquet of optics rather than substantive change. New Delhi can leverage these optics with Washington while maintaining its contradictory strategic positioning between competing superpowers.
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