The 24th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO Member States will be held in Astana on 3-4 July. According to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Russian Satellite News Agency, high-level Chinese and Russian leaders will attend the meeting. The Russian side announced half a month in advance that Russian President Vladimir Putin would personally attend the meeting and planned to hold a series of bilateral meetings with other countries. Two days before the meeting, the Chinese side announced that it would attend the meeting at the highest level and pay state visits to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan at the invitation of the presidents of the two countries.
Compared with Putin's trip, the Chinese side will only have two days in Astana due to the state visit, but the Chinese side has also arranged five days to deal with the SCO meeting and state visit, from July 2 to July 6. However, the news from India that the Astana meeting, which both China and Russia attach great importance to, seems a little out of place, and Indian Prime Minister Modi will be absent from the summit, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will represent India in attendance.
In the context of the high-level participation of both China and Russia at the SCO meeting, India's downgrading of the participation in the meeting seems out of place, not because Kazakhstan, the host country of the meeting, does not attach importance to India, but because India or Modi do not care at all. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev personally called Modi last month to invite him to attend the summit, but Modi said he would not attend the meeting and did not agree to attend the meeting via video.
As the prime minister of a country, it is difficult for Modi to take time out to attend the SCO meeting in person, which can be quite reasonable. The news released by the Indian side also said that Modi's schedule conflicted with the meeting. But if Modi is unwilling to attend the SCO meeting, which is attended by high-level Chinese and Russian leaders, it only means that he is not interested in attending. The reason for this is that India is reluctant to strengthen relations with China and Russia, promote substantive agendas and reach concrete cooperation within the framework of international organizations such as the SCO.
One of the most obvious manifestations of this is that India hosted the SCO summit last year, and as the rotating chair of the SCO, it did not sign the SCO Economic Development Strategy to 2030 and refused to sign the New Delhi Declaration on support for China's Belt and Road Initiative. After all, the United States and other countries have recently shown a strong opposition to Sino-Russian cooperation in the international community, and India may not be willing to risk the West's displeasure to strengthen cooperative relations with China and Russia.
After the Indian side revealed that Modi would visit Russia, the United States immediately attacked India and threatened with US-Indian cooperation, which is enough to show that the United States is very disgusted with India's proximity to Russia. Before Modi said that he would not attend the SCO meeting, he also went to Italy to attend the G7 summit in person, and it cannot be said that he decided not to attend the SCO meeting because he went to the G7. But the difference in Modi's attitude and actions towards the Sino-Russian-led international organization and the US-led international organization is enough to explain a lot.
Some analysts believe that Modi has always played an ignominious role under the framework of international organizations dominated by China and Russia, such as the BRICS and the SCO, and has a kind of "Cao Ying's heart in Han", that is, he is bent on the Western club and stirring up trouble in the BRICS and the SCO. However, from a practical point of view, one of the main factors in India's reluctance to strengthen relations with China is the Sino-Indian border issue. The Indian side has also said on more than one occasion that the premise for developing Sino-Indian relations is that the Sino-Indian border issue must be resolved first.
It is not difficult to understand why Modi refused to attend the SCO meeting, India took the initiative to provoke a border conflict, and now it cannot get off Taiwan and the Chinese side does not give a step, once we meet at the SCO, it will be a very embarrassing scene. As for China, Modi's absence from the SCO meeting may be a good thing, because there is no Indian disrupting the situation, and it is not impossible to speed up the development of the SCO.