Rajnath Singh set for bilateral meet with China defence minister today

In the SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting, the ministers will discuss matters concerning regional peace and security, counterterrorism efforts within the SCO, and effective multilateralism.

Resolution of issues along the Line of Actual Control might feature in the meeting between Singh and Li.

Last week, India and China held the 18th round of high-level military talks at the Chushul-Moldo meeting point in eastern Ladakh. The two sides discussed confidence-building measures and ways to avoid confrontation at the borders in the coming months.

Singh will also hold bilateral meetings with defence ministers of other participating countries on April 27 and 28, where bilateral defence related issues and other matters of mutual interest will be discussed.

The SCO member-countries are India, Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Apart from the member-states, two observer countries — Belarus and Iran — will also participate in the SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting this time.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Defence Ministry said Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif may not visit India and will attend it on a virtual mode.

With Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu attending the event, ongoing issues between India and Russia, such as the conflict hitting the scheduled supply of weapons and spares and India’s pending payments to Russia, might be discussed during Singh’s meeting with Shoigu. The Indian Express had earlier reported that New Delhi has not yet been able to clear Rouble payments against weapons delivered by Russia, and this had the possibility of affecting scheduled weapons deliveries from Russia.

Shoigu’s visit comes amid a series of high-level engagements between India and Russia, such as the visit of Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov for the 24th India-Russia talks.

As per the Defence Ministry, the theme of India’s chairmanship of the SCO in 2023 is ‘SECURE-SCO’.

“India attaches special importance to SCO in promoting multilateral, political, security, economic and people-to-people interactions in the region,” the ministry had stated.

It had said that the ongoing engagement with the SCO has helped India promote its relations with countries in the region with which India has shared civilisational linkages, and is considered India’s extended neighbourhood.

“India’s membership of SCO in 2017 was a reaffirmation of New Delhi’s keenness to deepen these historic ties. India considers SCO as an important regional group to promote multilateral, political, security, economic and people-to-people interactions in the region,” the ministry stated.