New Delhi: India's top cabinet ministers External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will attend a preparatory meeting on Tuesday, April 24th to prepare for the upcoming summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Sitharaman will attend the SCO defence ministers' meeting, whereas Swaraj will take part in the foreign ministers' meeting.

The annual summit of the SCO, of which India and Pakistan became full members last year, will take place in the Chinese city of Qingdao in June. Swaraj, who flew to China on April 21, is already in Beijing on a four-day visit to finalise the agenda for the summit of the eight-member political, economic and security bloc. Meanwhile, Sitharaman arrived in China late evening on April 23.

Modi’s two ministers are expected to hold discussions on trade and terrorism in the respective meetings. On a related note, the Ministry of External Affairs had earlier confirmed that there would be no bilateral meeting between Sushma Swaraj, Nirmala Sitharaman, and their Pakistani counterparts on the sidelines of the SCO.

The two ministers’ are also preparing ground before Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets China’s President Xi Jinping in a summit meeting on April 27-28. Modi’s visit comes just a month after Xi was elected the Chinese head of state for life, unanimously at the Communist Party’s Annual Congress. Modi and Xi will hold talks over bilateral relations, trade penalties and the protectionist stance adopted by the U.S. government, the Korean peninsula crisis among other issues. The summit is also being called a rapprochement by some analysts as the last year has seen some tension in the India-China bilateral vis-a-vis the border issue (Doklam standoff) and Beijing's seemingly aggressive inroads in  India's traditional sphere of influence in the subcontinent.

"During this meeting, the two leaders will discuss the changes that have taken place and which are unprecedented in the past 100 years and exchange views on the strategic, over-arching and long-term issues concerning our bilateral relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang had noted on April 22, 2018.

Meanwhile, China regards boosting the development of the SCO as one of its diplomatic priorities, said President Xi Jinping on Monday, adding that he believes the upcoming SCO summit in the coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong Province, in June will be a success.

Xi made the remarks in a group meeting with foreign ministers from Russia, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as with SCO secretary-general, and the director of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure Executive Committee.

The SCO is being pushed by China as an Asian alternative to various Western country groupings, however the disparity in sizes of the member economies as well as the competing interests as well as existing conflicts such as India-Pakistan, India-China make its impact a limited one. The SCO summit also comes in the backdrop of G-7 group of countries’ foreign ministers’ meet in Toronto, Canada. Russia, a member of SCO was expelled from the G-7 after its annexation of Crimea during the Ukraine protests.

The SCO, which is headquartered in Beijing, was founded in 2001. It comprises of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, India and Pakistan, and aims at civil, military and economic cooperation between the member states. (With Agency inputs)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 24, 2018 05:31 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).