New Delhi
US-sanctioned Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu is expected to travel to Delhi in April to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation or SCO Defence ministers' meeting. The meet will take place from April 27 to 29, and comes under Indian chairmanship of the mega grouping. Defence minister Li Shangfu took charge in March and has been sanctioned by Washington under CAATSA law in the past. But being under sanctions is unlikely to impact his India visit given New Delhi doesn't follow unilateral sanctions by any country.
India has sent invites to all the members of the grouping for the meet, including Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif and Russian Defence minister Sergei Shoigu. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is a regional inter-governmental organisation comprising eight member states, including China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The organisation covers over 60 per cent of the Eurasian landmass, 40 per cent of the world population, and 30 per cent of global GDP.
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The visit by the Chinese defence minister will be the first such visit by a Chinese defence minister to Delhi since the Galwan incident. The Galwan incident of 2020 saw Chinese aggressive action at the Line of Actual control in eastern Ladakh that led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers. China, after much delay, accepted that it lost four of its soldiers, a claim that remains doubtful given Beijing's track record on transparency. Last year, the then Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi had visited India, followed by the visit of the new Chinese FM Qin Gang this year for the G20 foreign ministers meet.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is also expected to visit Delhi in July to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. The visit by the Chinese President, though it comes for a multilateral grouping, will be significant given the strained relations between India and China in the backdrop of Chinese aggressive actions in India's northern borders.
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