India-China relations: Modi, Xi look set to meet. Will frosty ties thaw at BRICS, G20 summits?

Within months, both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are likely to be in the same room again.

But whether the two leaders will hold bilateral talks and seek to mend their countries' deeply strained ties remains to be seen.

Doubtful Indian foreign-policy observers cite New Delhi's last-minute decision to make this month's Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit virtual, eliminating the chance for a Modi-Xi meeting on the sidelines.

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Both leaders are set to attend the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg from August 22-24 and the G20 Leaders' Summit in Delhi a fortnight afterwards.

Yet Modi and Xi have not engaged each other diplomatically since the 2019 BRICS summit in Brazil. By contrast, despite deeply strained ties, Xi has met US President Joe Biden twice over the last two years, with a third meeting seemingly in the works.

A meeting between Modi and Xi is growing ever more essential, analysts say, amid their ongoing border stand-off and diplomatic flare-ups that have only hardened attitudes even as both nuclear-armed neighbours continue to fortify the Line of Actual Control with troops, heavy artillery and infrastructure, including lightweight high-altitude tanks.

Talks between military commanders have not yielded fruit, according to foreign-policy observers, who are now keenly watching whether the ice between the leaders finally breaks at their impending big-ticket summits.

The leaders' lack of recent in-person contact stands in stark contrast to their previous camaraderie - between 2014, when Modi became prime minister, and June 2020, they met 18 times and also held informal summits in 2018 and 2019.

Clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley, a part of the disputed border region near India's Ladakh, put a stop to the bilateral meets.

BR Deepak, a professor of Chinese and China studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the possibility of a Modi-Xi meeting on the sidelines of next month's BRICS summit was "very high".

Such a meeting, Deepak said, could kick-start talks to resolve the stand-off.

"I believe if disengagement between the troops happens and negotiations on the friction points continue, it could pave the way for Xi's prospective visit [to India for the G20 summit]," Deepak said.

Retired Indian Navy commodore RS Vasan noted there were similar expectations about the recent SCO summit before it went virtual.

"There were expectations that Xi would visit India and there would be some amount of easing of tensions on the bilateral front," said Vasan, now director general of the Chennai Centre for China Studies. "But these expectations have been [dampened]."

Ties between the two Asian giants have been coming apart at the seams recently.

At this month's SCO summit, India was the only nation to oppose Xi's Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure push to grow global trade and also reportedly refused to sign the SCO Economic Development Strategy for 2030, as it was "wary" of "too many references to Chinese catchphrases and diplomatic policies" in the strategy.

Journalists became ensnared in the frayed tensions, with Indian media reporting that the last remaining Chinese journalist in India had been "expelled" after his visa was not renewed, while at least three Indian journalists based in Beijing were reportedly barred from remaining in China.

Adding further fuel to the fire, India last week expressed its support for the Philippines over a 2016 arbitration ruling that rejected Beijing's "nine-dash line" claims in the South China Sea.

Then there was Modi's address to the US Congress in June, in which he spoke of "dark clouds of coercion and confrontation" casting a shadow over the region, without overtly naming China.

Modi also called the Dalai Lama on July 6, to wish the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader a happy 88th birthday - an act many believe was meant to prick Beijing.

Rajiv Bhatia, a distinguished fellow at the Gateway House think tank, said these flare-ups had reduced optimism about a Modi-Xi meeting taking place.

The old approach of relying on multilateral collaboration despite strained ties "is showing limitations and running into difficulties", said Bhatia, pointing to last year's G20 summit in Bali, where the two leaders shook hands but chose not to hold talks.

"I don't think there was confidence [in Delhi] that an in-person bilateral meeting during the SCO summit would have possibly helped the bilateral relationship. In fact, it might even have complicated matters."

Bhatia, a former Indian ambassador, further cited a "divergence" in approaches towards expanding the BRICS forum to include countries such as Argentina, Egypt and Indonesia.

"The Chinese want to race ahead, but India wants to make sure that the cohesion and consolidation of BRICS are not affected by its sudden expansion," he said.

Meanwhile, along the Line of Actual Control, tensions are already hardening.

A June report by London-based think tank Chatham House found "an increased strategic threat to India" in the disputed Aksai Chin-Ladakh region, noting the presence of People's Liberation Army camps, well-connected road networks and helipads.

"For India, this means its armed forces will now have to match a large-scale and probably semi-permanent Chinese presence along the border with Aksai Chin, perhaps for years to come," the report said.

On Wednesday, Ladakh councillor Konchok Stanzin claimed on Twitter that the Chinese military had pitched four tents, three of which were later removed, in "buffer zone" areas created as part of troop disengagement agreements in the region.

In Delhi, many fear the unresolved border stand-off now threatens to cast a shadow over Xi's participation at India's G20 summit.

"For the government, a G20 summit without China will be a diplomatic loss, but having Xi on Indian soil at a time when Indian troops are locked in a stand-off augurs badly for Delhi's domestic politics," said a think-tank expert in the Indian capital who declined to be named, adding that Modi's government needed a breakthrough in the border stand-off before the G20 meet.

Fellow think-tank expert Bhatia said he did not "share the optimism" that the border dispute would be resolved any time soon, but noted that China's own foreign-policy compulsions meant Xi was more than likely to attend the G20 summit anyway.

"China might not wish to be isolated from the G20. If Russia and China won't be there, then they fear the G20 would be allowed to run ahead with its agenda," he said, adding that it was unclear whether Russian leader Vladimir Putin would also attend.

Xi's attendance at the G20 summit, though helpful, might not lead to bilateral relations improving right away, warned professor Deepak.

"Given the dynamics of India's bilateral and international engagement, India-China relations will not return to the same equilibrium in the short or medium term," Deepak said. "Both sides will have to manage and control differences so the chances of conflict are minimised."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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