The possibility of a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping looms large as the Prime Minister leaves for South Africa’s Johannesburg on Tuesday (August 22) to attend the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit on August 23 and 24.
A meeting with Xi poses a challenge for Modi.
Modi will have bilateral meetings with the other BRICS leaders and also some of the African leaders who are participating in the summit.
His not meeting Xi will be noticed by others and it is likely to become a topic of discussion.
Not just that. In September, India is hosting the G20 Summit in New Delhi and Modi is looking for a full participation of all the members and invitees.
If the Chinese President feels slighted, he may stay away from the Delhi summit.
However, even if he attends the G20 summit, Modi will find it difficult to not meet Xi Jinping as being the host, Modi will be meeting other leaders separately.
India has maintained that normal relations with China will not be possible unless the situation at the LAC is normalised. This calls for the withdrawal of Chinese troops from areas they have occupied since May 2020.
Even if a Modi-Xi meeting takes place in South Africa, as long as the Chinese troops are present at the border, it will continue to be a source of concern and embarrassment for the Indian leadership.
The BRICS summit
The BRICS summit will be preceded on August 22 by the Retreat, where visiting leaders meet informally to discuss global issues.
From South Africa, Modi will leave for Greece for a state visit on August 25.
Of the five members of the BRICS, four leaders -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Modi, Xi and their South African counterpart and host of the summit, Ceril Ramaphosa, will be present.
The notable absentee will be Russian President Vladimir Putin. He will address the summit virtually and Russia will be represented by foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
Putin will not attend in person because of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant on him for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
However, the speculation and interest of the BRICS members and other guests at the summit will be on a possible Xi-Modi meeting.
Modi-Xi have met several times
The two leaders have met 19 times since Modi became Prime Minister in May 2014, at each other’s country and at other venues during regional and international meetings.
But since 2020, after Chinese troops unilaterally violated the status quo at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), leading to a standoff between the two militaries, there have been no formal meetings between them.
Last year, at the G20 summit in Indonesia’s Bali, Xi and Modi had met briefly. A substantial discussion between the two has not taken place for a while.
A possible meeting on the sidelines
The Chinese have been more enthusiastic about a possible Xi-Modi meeting.
The Chinese ambassador to South Africa, Chen Xiaodong, said: “I am confident that, as two nations, two countries, we will have direct talks, direct meetings,” at the August 22-24 summit, Bloomberg reported.
However, Indian foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra remained evasive while briefing the media on Monday about the Prime Minister's visit.
He said there will be a lot of leaders at the summit and the Prime Minister’s schedule for the meeting was still developing.
Summits have been ideal for leaders to have brief meetings with each other at the venue—known as sideline meetings.
They are informal and short meetings between leaders with a limited number of aides to discuss a few issues briefly.
They allow leaders to have several such meetings and be in contact with a maximum number of their counterparts at the summit.
It has often provided countries, especially with strained relations, to break the ice and pave the way for a more structured meeting.
The Indian Prime Minister and the Chinese President will also be in close proximity at the summit for almost two days and this has led to speculation about a possible meeting.
This will be the first in-person meeting between the BRICS leaders after three consecutive virtual summits of the bloc because of COVID-19.
Xi landed in South Africa on August 21, while Modi will arrive there on Tuesday (August 22) afternoon. Both will be present at the Retreat.
Other meetings between the two sides
In recent weeks, both the Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and the Foreign Minister S Jaishankar had separate meetings with China’s top diplomat and de facto foreign minister Wang Yi.
Whether the possibility of a Modi-Xi meeting was discussed between them is not known.
But the discussions had led to subsequent meetings between the top commanders of the two sides to discuss the situation at the LAC and how to restore normalcy there.
The Indian side failed to get any firm commitment from the Chinese on India's proposal for a sequential disengagement, de-escalation and de-induction of forward deployed troops along the LAC in eastern Ladakh.
Both sides agreed to maintain peace along the LAC and held senior military- official level talks at Daulat Beg Oldie and Chushul for a set of confidence-building-measures to reduce tension.
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