India Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seen here in February, plans to visit China this weekend for a summit that includes Russian President Vladimir Putin. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
China will host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a regional security summit this weekend.
Modi will travel to China for his first visit in seven years, as India and China have feuded in the past over a border dispute in the Himalayas.
More than 20 heads of state will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit starting Sunday. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian are also expected to be there.
India and China fell into a deadly border dispute in 2020 in the Himalayas. There were 20 Indian and five Chinese soldiers killed.
India responded by banning several Chinese-based apps, including TikTok, and there were calls to boycott Chinese goods. As a result, China built villages along the 2,200-mile border to create infrastructure for the Chinese military.
But last fall, one month before U.S. President Donald Trump was elected, Modi and Xi met at the Russian BRICS summit. They began allowing direct flights between the two countries again, and China reopened a pilgrimage site in the mountains for Indians to visit.
The meeting comes days after Trump added a 50% tariff on India’s exports to the United States because India refuses to stop buying Russian oil, a sanction to punish Russia for its continued bombing of Ukraine.
The 50% tariffs on India now in effect are among the highest levied on any country by the United States, which could imperil the two nations’ trading relationship and raise prices for American consumers.
“We will lose [approximately $24.72 billion] as the first jolt to this tariff, across 10 sectors alone,” said Indian National Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge in an X post Wednesday. Kharge also asserted that the tariffs could be a blow to Indian farmers, create “massive job losses” in export-related sectors and impact nearly 1% of India’s GDP.
“Indian trust in the U.S. is shattered,” The Guardian reported South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman said. “I’m not sure whether U.S. officials fully realize how much trust they have squandered in such a short time.”
