Seven months after they announced a “no-limits” partnership, which was followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping renewed their vows in a bilateral meeting just ahead of the SCO Summit in Samarkand.
While a Russia-India-China trilateral summit, that had been outlooked by Kremlin officials last December is considered unlikely to happen on Friday given continuing tensions in India-China ties, experts say Mr. Putin could also play a role in “encouraging” Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr. Xi to resolve differences over the military stand-off at the Line of Actual Control.
“You cannot rule out that Mr. Putin will try to bring the Indian and Chinese leaders to a conversation,” said Pankaj Saran, former Deputy National Security Adviser, former Ambassador to Russia and an expert on the region. He also pointed to the role Russia played during the SCO ministerial meetings in Moscow in September 2020 to ensure an RIC meeting on the sidelines between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, hosted by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
