Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet thrice at three different virtual summits in the month of November.
They will take part in; the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Heads of State summit on November 10, the BRICS summit on November 17 and the G20 summit on November 21-22.
While Russia, the chair of the BRICS and SCO grouping, will host both these summits and the G20 summit will be hosted by Saudi Arabia.
This will be the first time both the leaders will be together amid border tensions. The ties between both the countries have deteriorated after the Galwan incident of June 15 in which 20 Indian soldiers died, and while China too suffered casualties.
In the past, high-level engagement between India and China has taken place on the sidelines of such summits. In fact, it had become a norm for both the leaders to meet on the sidelines of such major meetings. This time no such meet is expected, given the mode of the meet is virtual.
This is for the first time that such summits are happening virtually. Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia had hosted an extraordinary virtual summit of G20 leaders to jointly come out with G20 strategy to deal with the pandemic. Both, PM Modi and Chinese President Xi were present in the meet, but at that time ties had not suffered the blow which subsequent months saw.
November is already being termed as a summit month. Other than SCO, BRICS and G20, the month will see ASEAN virtual summit from November 13-15 and SCO heads of government will meet on November 30.
While ASEAN is being hosted by Vietnam, the SCO Heads of Govt is hosted by New Delhi, and by protocol, it will be inviting Pakistan and China.
India, along with China, Pakistan, Russia and four central asian countries–Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.