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NEW DELHI: The new Chinese defence minister General Li Shangfu will be in Delhi for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting next week, amid the continuing three-year-old military confrontation in eastern Ladakh.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu will also attend the SCO defence ministers’ meet on April 27-28, at a time when there are growing concerns in India over the tightening Moscow-Beijing strategic embrace and the fallout of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Asif will, however, participate virtually in the meet.
Sources said defence minister Rajnath Singh is “likely” to hold bilateral meetings with both General Li and Shoigu on April 27, while the main day for the SCO meet will be on April 28.
This will be the first visit by a Chinese defence minister to India since the People’s Liberation Army made multiple intrusions into eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020, which has led to a major nosedive in bilateral ties.
China has so far refused to undertake troop disengagement at the crucial face-offs at the strategically-located Depsang Plains as well as the Charding Ninglung Nallah (CNN) track junction at Demchok in eastern Ladakh.
Beijing has also upped the ante along the Sikkim-Arunachal Pradesh frontier, which resulted in the clash between the rival troops at Yangtse in the crucial Tawang sector on December 9. Earlier this month, it also “standardized” the names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh, which was summarily rejected by India.
As reported earlier by TOI, India and Russia are still struggling to find an effective payment mechanism for defence deals in the wake of US-led sanctions on Moscow for invading Ukraine in February last year. This has somewhat delayed the delivery of the fourth and the fifth squadrons of the S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems, among other things, to India.
While India has taken steps to diversify its arms imports over the years, Russia still remains its largest weapons supplier, with 45% of the total imports in the 2018-2022 timeframe.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu will also attend the SCO defence ministers’ meet on April 27-28, at a time when there are growing concerns in India over the tightening Moscow-Beijing strategic embrace and the fallout of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Asif will, however, participate virtually in the meet.
Sources said defence minister Rajnath Singh is “likely” to hold bilateral meetings with both General Li and Shoigu on April 27, while the main day for the SCO meet will be on April 28.
This will be the first visit by a Chinese defence minister to India since the People’s Liberation Army made multiple intrusions into eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020, which has led to a major nosedive in bilateral ties.
China has so far refused to undertake troop disengagement at the crucial face-offs at the strategically-located Depsang Plains as well as the Charding Ninglung Nallah (CNN) track junction at Demchok in eastern Ladakh.
Beijing has also upped the ante along the Sikkim-Arunachal Pradesh frontier, which resulted in the clash between the rival troops at Yangtse in the crucial Tawang sector on December 9. Earlier this month, it also “standardized” the names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh, which was summarily rejected by India.
As reported earlier by TOI, India and Russia are still struggling to find an effective payment mechanism for defence deals in the wake of US-led sanctions on Moscow for invading Ukraine in February last year. This has somewhat delayed the delivery of the fourth and the fifth squadrons of the S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems, among other things, to India.
While India has taken steps to diversify its arms imports over the years, Russia still remains its largest weapons supplier, with 45% of the total imports in the 2018-2022 timeframe.
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