Will PM Modi meet China's Xi Jinping during BRICS summit in Johannesburg?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may or may not meet President Xi Jinping, but China has been on his mind as he attends the BRICS summit in Johannesburg. There is no official confirmation about a meeting between the two leaders, but with news reports post the 19th Line of Actual Control (LAC) commanders just a day before Independence Day suggesting that there may be some progress on disengagement, there are indications that the stage is being set for a meeting.

Whether the meeting happens in Johannesburg or in Delhi, when Xi travels for the G20 meeting in early September, remains to be seen. But a meeting between the leaders is imminent. At the BRICS Business Forum leaders’ dialogue on Tuesday, Modi even as he pitched for investment in India, raised the “importance of resilient and inclusive supply chains’’—a comment that is clearly aimed at China.

“Covid-19 pandemic has taught us the importance of resilient and inclusive supply chains. Mutual trust and transparency are very important to achieve this,’’ said Modi. “We can collectively work towards the welfare of the Global South and make a significant contribution to it.”

Any meeting between the two leaders will be viewed through the prism of their respective domestic audiences. Facing an election next year, and with the opposition raising questions on China and the “land lost’’, PM Modi is under pressure to “deliver a win”.

While the two leaders have not had a conversation after the Galwan clash in 2020, in Bali the two leaders did reach a “consensus’’ on the boundary, according to a read-out China sent out after a meeting between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval with his counterpart Wang Yi, Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China, in July. The ministry of external affairs, then, confirmed that the two leaders “spoke’’.

A report in The Indian Express, on Wednesday quoted an official source stating that the commanders on the ground were “discussing possible modalities for limited disengagement at certain mutually-accepted points along the boundary’’. If this move could possibly be a step towards creating the right climate for the leaders to meet remains to be seen. India has made it clear, on several occasions that the relationship between the two countries is far from normal. “India-China relations are not normal and cannot be normal if peace and tranquility in border areas are disturbed,” said S. Jaishankar after a meeting of foreign ministers of the member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Goa.