New Delhi: New Chinese Defense Minister General Li Shangfu will be in Delhi for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.Shanghai Cooperation OrganizationMeeting next week amid ongoing three-year-old military confrontation in the eastern Ladakh,
Russian Defense Minister sergei shoigu Will also participate in the SCO Defense Ministers’ meeting on April 27-28, at a time when concerns are growing in India about the tighter Moscow-Beijing strategic embrace and the fallout of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, however, will attend the meeting virtually.
Sources said that the Defense Minister Rajnath Singh It is “likely” to have bilateral meetings with both General Li and Shoigu on April 27, while the main day of the SCO meeting will be on April 28.
This will be the Chinese Defense Minister’s first visit to India since the People’s Liberation Army made several incursions in eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020, which led to a major downgrade in bilateral ties.
China has so far ruled out a significant face-off at the strategically located Depsang Plains as well as the Charing Ninglung Nala (CNN) track junction at Demchok in eastern Ladakh.
Beijing has also stepped up its actions along the Sikkim-Arunachal Pradesh border, resulting in a clash between rival troops on the Yangtze in the crucial Tawang sector on December 9. Earlier this month, it also “standardised” the names of 11 places in Arunachal. territory, which was summarily rejected by India.
As reported earlier by TOI, India and Russia are still struggling to find an effective payment mechanism for defense deals in the wake of US-led sanctions on Moscow for invading Ukraine in February last year. This, among other things, has led to some delay in the delivery of the fourth and fifth squadrons of the S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems to India.
While India has taken steps to diversify its arms imports over the years, Russia still remains its largest arms supplier, accounting for 45% of total imports over the 2018-2022 time frame.
Russian Defense Minister sergei shoigu Will also participate in the SCO Defense Ministers’ meeting on April 27-28, at a time when concerns are growing in India about the tighter Moscow-Beijing strategic embrace and the fallout of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, however, will attend the meeting virtually.
Sources said that the Defense Minister Rajnath Singh It is “likely” to have bilateral meetings with both General Li and Shoigu on April 27, while the main day of the SCO meeting will be on April 28.
This will be the Chinese Defense Minister’s first visit to India since the People’s Liberation Army made several incursions in eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020, which led to a major downgrade in bilateral ties.
China has so far ruled out a significant face-off at the strategically located Depsang Plains as well as the Charing Ninglung Nala (CNN) track junction at Demchok in eastern Ladakh.
Beijing has also stepped up its actions along the Sikkim-Arunachal Pradesh border, resulting in a clash between rival troops on the Yangtze in the crucial Tawang sector on December 9. Earlier this month, it also “standardised” the names of 11 places in Arunachal. territory, which was summarily rejected by India.
As reported earlier by TOI, India and Russia are still struggling to find an effective payment mechanism for defense deals in the wake of US-led sanctions on Moscow for invading Ukraine in February last year. This, among other things, has led to some delay in the delivery of the fourth and fifth squadrons of the S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems to India.
While India has taken steps to diversify its arms imports over the years, Russia still remains its largest arms supplier, accounting for 45% of total imports over the 2018-2022 time frame.