Modi to visit China after 7 years as tensions with US rise

KABUL (Pajhwok): Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit China for the first time in over seven years amid escalating tensions with the US, a media report said on Thursday.

Reuters reported, citing a government source that Modi will travel to China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization multilateral summit scheduled to begin on August 31.

It said: “Modi’s visit to the Chinese city of Tianjin for the SCO summit, a Eurasian political and security grouping that includes Russia, will be his first since June 2018”.

The Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not yet officially commented on the visit.

Narendra Modi last visited China in June 2018.

His trip will come at a time when India’s relationship with the US faces its most serious crisis in years after President Donald Trump imposed the highest tariffs among Asian peers on goods imported from India, and has threatened an unspecified further penalty for New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil.

hz/ma