Modi’s Russia visit a sign of India’s unresolved tensions with China, analysts say

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has confirmed a two-day visit to Russia, following his decision to skip a regional summit where Chinese President Xi Jinping is in attendance.

Analysts suggest the two moves are a sign of New Delhi’s unresolved tensions with Beijing over their border issues, its desire to maintain strong ties with Moscow and its strategic efforts at balancing relations between the two.

Modi was absent from a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – a grouping initially established by China, Russia and the ex-Soviet Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – which convened this week in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana.

Instead, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar was tasked to attend the meeting, with Delhi claiming the dates clashed with India’s first session of parliament under Modi’s third-term government.

Analysts are divided on whether Modi’s decision signals his unwillingness to engage directly with Xi at the regional meeting due to the outstanding border issues that have remained a source of tension since their troops clashed in 2020.

But what is clear is Modi is more than willing to meet Putin, with the Kremlin confirming on Thursday that the Indian prime minister is scheduled to travel to Moscow on Friday for a two-day visit.

Harsh Pant, an international relations professor at King’s College London, said Modi probably wanted to avoid “the optics of meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping” to signal that the “top Indian leadership will not engage with China at the highest level unless something changes in the Chinese approach” to resolving the border issue.

At the same time, Modi wanted to emphasise the importance of India’s historically strong ties with Russia by