Under the chairmanship of the People’s Republic of China, the 20th Meeting of the Secretaries of the Security Councils of SCO member states and the 22nd Meeting of the Defence Ministers of SCO member states were held.
On the sidelines of the meetings of the security council secretaries and defence ministers of SCO member states, India and China continued their negotiations on resolving outstanding issues in their bilateral relations.
In the run-up to the annual SCO summit of heads of state, scheduled for autumn 2025 in China, two important preparatory meetings took place in late June, involving national security leaders and defence ministers of the organisation’s member states. Participants discussed a wide range of issues concerning cooperation in maintaining peace, security, and stability across the SCO space, as well as joint efforts to counter modern challenges and threats — above all, terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking, organised crime, and others.
Special attention was paid to the development of multilateral military and defence cooperation among member states in order to strengthen regional security. Emphasis was placed on the need for unity and deeper cooperation within the forum to effectively respond to new threats, diffuse areas of tension, and mitigate existing risks within its area of responsibility. At the same time, it was underlined that the SCO’s constructive and expanding partnerships are not directed against any third countries, and that its united voice is more necessary than ever in addressing global and regional security challenges.
Notably, while the meeting of security council secretaries, though not without difficulty, succeeded in agreeing on a final protocol, the discussions among defence ministers — particularly involving India and Pakistan — on the issue of modern terrorism did not result in a consensus-based document.
In light of the recent terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh insisted on incorporating stronger language into the joint communiqué condemning cross-border terrorism and double standards on the issue — clearly hinting at Pakistan’s alleged encouragement of extremist actions. He openly stated that certain SCO participants use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of state policy and called for its condemnation. Unsurprisingly, the Indian position drew a sharp reaction from Islamabad, which enjoys China’s backing. Due to these irreconcilable differences and the lack of consensus, no joint statement was adopted, casting a shadow over the outcome of the defence ministers’ discussions. It should be noted that bringing bilateral disputes into the agenda of a multilateral forum does little to enhance its credibility and negatively affects the effectiveness of decisions taken.
India and China, in turn, used the meetings to continue their difficult dialogue on problematic issues in bilateral relations — chiefly, their territorial disputes. This topic was central to talks between Indian National Security Adviser and Special Representative on Border Issues Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, as well as between Defence Ministers Rajnath Singh and Dong Jun. Following these two separate conversations, both sides noted with some satisfaction the limited progress made in recent months toward the normalisation and development of relations, including the discussion of highly complex — and, one might add, deeply intractable — border disputes in two regions: the Aksai Chin area, adjacent to India’s territory in Ladakh (Jammu and Kashmir), China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and Pakistan, and the northeastern Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, which border China’s Tibet. In the first case, the Aksai Chin region — an uninhabited and desolate area of around 40,000 square kilometres currently controlled by China — is claimed by India. In the second, China lays claim to a territory of some 84,000 square kilometres in India’s forest-rich northeast.
These territorial disputes, which led to a major border conflict between India and China in 1962, have deep historical roots in the colonial-era border agreements inherited from British India. Periodic clashes along the Line of Actual Control in the two disputed areas continue to generate tension in bilateral relations. This is why the recent focus on disengaging border forces along the Line of Actual Control and resuming dialogue to reduce tensions is of great importance for restoring trust and improving relations between these two powerful and competing global actors.
Russia has long supported the peaceful resolution of all issues between India and China and, not coincidentally, was the initiator in the late 1990s of the Russia–India–China (RIC) format — an important dialogue platform that later evolved into what is now known as BRICS. Nevertheless, Moscow remains committed to RIC and advocates its continued relevance, naturally with the agreement and support of both New Delhi and Beijing.
Anvar Azimov, diplomat and political scientist, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher at the Eurasian Educational Institute of MGIMO of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
