Home Minister Rajnath Singh may attend Bilateral meet at SCO Summit on disaster

NEW DELHI:The acrimony over the Dokalam standoff has not stopped India and China from continuing to engage over certain subjects of bilateral significance. The fact that Home Minister Rajnath Singh is expected to meet Chinese officials in Kyrgyzstan for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) disaster management meet, and the visit of senior Chinese official Tang Qian, who is Beijing’s candidate for the coveted post of DG of UNESCO, to solicit India’s support, is testimony to this.

Days after sounding positive that a solution to the Dokalam crisis would be thrashed out soon, Rajnath Singh is leading a delegation to the Kyrgyz Republic to attend the 9th Meeting of Heads of Governments of SCO member states to be held on August 24-25, dealing with the prevention and elimination of emergency situations.

Singh is also expected to interact with Chinese officials at that meet as SCO, like BRICS, provides yet another multilateral forum to both Delhi and Beijing to build mutual confidence. The home minister is likely to have bilateral meetings with ministers of some SCO member states during his trip.

In the run-up to the BRICS Summit from Sept 3-5, several Indian ministers had travelled to various Chinese cities for BRICS-related meetings. NSA AK Doval was in Beijing last month to discuss the security agenda of the group besides meeting with the State Councillor on the Dokalam standoff.

The BRICS Summit will also enable Modi to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for a bilateral meeting and may pave a way for the standoff to end and status quo to be restored.



India got full membership of SCO this year and PM Narendra Modi attended its annual Summit meeting in June. Meanwhile, almost two weeks ago, China’s candidate for UNESCO DG post came to India to solicit support.

Tang Qian, who is currently assistant director general for education, is one of nine candidates standing for the October election to the post of director general of UNESCO. Tang met with senior Indian government officials to present his case.