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Tianjin, China – 01 September: Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi talks to Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and President of Chinese Xi Jinping ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the Convention and the Meijian Exhibition Center on September 1 in China in Tiangin. (Photo Suo Takekuma – Images in Pool/Geth)
Pool | Getty Images | Gets the image
Sometimes one photo tells a story better than any communiqué or the declaration of the summit.
The widespread clip of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin together in Beijing have already become viral.
The surface seems to be a light exchange between three leaders. But analysts say it reflects a delicate combination of competing ambitions, old suspicions and changes in power dynamics.
Gaut Bomber, former Indian Ambassador to China, said CNBC in India: “Dragon and elephant are not yet dancing.
The obstacles are clear. The border dispute between India and China remains unresolved after the 2020 collisions. A close partnership in Beijing with Pakistan – goes beyond economic corridors into military equipment and reconnaissance cooperation – it is additionally restrained how the connection may develop.
This Summit in Shanghai Cooperation in Shanghai (SCO) gave the photo its background. Shecaldo expands in size and ambition, but, as Jeremy Chan noted in Eurosia Group, more famously means more relevant.
“SCO, although it is usually described as an organization of security, does not really focus on military issues, and all global conflicts that have taken place recently, whether it is Ukraine or gas, is not essentially absent,” Chang CNBC said.
The meeting timing is also noticeable. With former US President Donald Trump, which raise tariffs and restless world markets, Beijing uses the SCO to emphasize its propaganda communication in the south of the world. Chan said Trump “breathing a new life” into the summit, giving China the opportunity to determine its diplomacy as more reliable than in Washington.
Photo-up also conducted close attention in American media. The New York Times The interaction is described as “the smiling manifestation of the troika, which Moscow recently stated that he hoped to revive,” noting the optics of the closeness between Modi and Putin, who even shared a trip to the meeting. The report stated that traditionally careful bureaucracy of India could avoid such obvious manifestations with China and Russia, but the broad tariffs of Trump leave Newdli with a “small stimulus”.
Multipolarity defined by -nasty
Bet investors are important. The SCO brings together the economy representing almost half of the world’s population, central to energy and trade flows. With tariffs that threaten the supply chain and markets that observe the signs of fragmentation, such summits closely monitor the signals of new arrangements, even if significant results are limited.
For India, optica has weight. Modi’s negotiations with SI were interpreted as a reminder of Washington that India is ready to support the dialogue with Beijing and Moscow, delving into connection with the US and its allies. But the New Deli decision to miss the SCO military parade emphasized the borders of any thaw.
“India uses this to send the conjunctural signal indirectly to Washington that it has strategic options not only in Beijing but also in Moscow,” Chan said. Fast Modi’s exit from Beijing, immediately after arriving from Tokyo, also emphasized India’s constant interaction with US partners in Asia.
The summit was based on a discussion about “multipolarity”, – said Chan, adding that the definition of multipolarity is different for India and China.
Beijing defines this as a system in which the US dominance decreases, allowing China to declare itself as a leading power of Asia. On the contrary, India is considering multipolarity because the influence is more evenly in many countries without a single state, Chan in India CNBC said.
For Russia, SCO remains one of the few international platforms where Putin is not defensive, emphasizing Moscow’s strong ties with influential Asian partners, despite Western sanctions.
The photo in Beijing fixes it all in one frame. Smiles suggest harmony, but reality is much more difficult.
