Neither side wants war, says China as Xi mulls SCO invite

INTERNATIONAL DESK: India has sent an official invite to Chinese President Xi Jinping for the SCO summit, China confirmed Wednesday. Chinese charge d’affaires Ma Jia said, however, a decision on whether Xi will come for the SCO meeting was still awaited as the date for the summit had not been finalised yet.

The SCO meeting is likely to take place in the first week of July, 2 months before the G20 summit where India will hope to forge a consensus on the Ukraine issue in the form of a joint communique, like the Bali Declaration last year. In a sign of the complications India might have to circumvent, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in their summit meeting slammed the West for the “politicisation” of multilateral platforms and attempts to use “irrelevant issues” to dilute the agenda of these platforms.

Ma expressed the same sentiment here as she said consensus would be difficult as “prominent security issues’’ were being taken up on economic and financial platforms.

Ma also confirmed Xi had received an official invite for the G20 summit in September. India currently holds the presidency for both G20 and SCO. While the G20 summit will be held on September 9-10, there’s no confirmation yet of the date for the SCO summit.

India had earlier proposed that the summit be held on June 25 but apparently now wants it postponed to July 5. PM Narendra Modi is likely to travel to the US between June 21 and 25 for a state visit. Modi and Xi have not had a bilateral meeting since tensions erupted at the LAC in eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020. They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries last year in Bali on the sidelines of the G20 summit but there was no formal meeting.

Speaking about the border situation, which she described as stable but also complicated, Ma said she was optimistic about the talks underway to resolve the ongoing military standoff and that neither side wanted war or confrontation. She reiterated China’s position that 2 sides were moving towards “normalised” border management. Foreign minister S Jaishankar had last week described the border situation as fragile and dangerous.

‘’The situation is very complicated and that’s why we are having the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Cooperation (WMCC) talks and also the senior commanders’ meeting,’’ said Ma.

“There are difficulties, but we are confident that neither side wants war or confrontation. Both sides want relations to improve. The leaders had earlier reached an important consensus. We are looking at ties from a strategic and long-term perspective,’’ added the diplomat. She indicated though that consensus at G20 on the Ukraine issue would be difficult as she said the situation had “intensified’’ since the Bali Declaration.

Asked about China placing a hold on proposed UN ban on Pakistan-based terrorists, Ma said China was acting in strict adherence to rules and procedures of the UNSC 1267 sanctions committee which had very clear guidelines for listing of terrorists. (TIMES OF INDIA)