About a month and a half before the next Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the work on finalising its agenda is picking up steam. Apart from being of interest as the high table of the world’s largest regional grouping by geographical size and population, the summit will be watched for its bilateral subtexts, particularly in South Asia. If all heads of government of the eight SCO member states attend the summit on September 15-16, it will set up the stage for an interesting series of interactions.
This week, the SCO foreign ministers met in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent to outline the agenda for the summit. They would have been aware that the bilateral sideshows in Samarkand are likely to find their way to the centrestage, and they would have figured that in their preparations. The summit, for instance, is likely to see Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India come face-to-face with President Xi Jinping of China for the first time since the ongoing military stalemate in eastern Ladakh started in April 2020. Modi, were he to attend, would also have a chance to share the forum with Pakistan’s new prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, for the first time.
