ISAS Briefs

The meeting between India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Astana on 9 June 2017, ahead of New Delhi's admission as a full-fledged member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), has been viewed positively by both sides. Although the talks took place under the cloud of India's refusal to endorse China's global-connectivity mission - the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) - the two leaders discussed the idea of Sino-Indian cooperation for a stable multipolar world order. However, the China-India-Pakistan contestation is far from over. Admitting Islamabad too as a new member, the SCO has endorsed China's BRI, which seems to favour Pakistan in its sovereignty tussle with India over a tract of land being used for a Sino-Pakistani connectivity project.