Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood out as one of the tallest leaders during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, which concluded recently in Tianjin, China.
There were heads and representatives of the governments of ten countries who attended the summit. However, the focus remained only on Prime Minister Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the Chinese President Xi Jinping.
There was nothing new or unusual about Prime Minister Modi attending the SCO summit. It was not for the first time that he was attending the summit. India joined the SCO in 2017 and Modi has mostly attended all the summits, in person or virtually.
The recent SCO summit was held in the backdrop of the crippling and punitive tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on various countries, particularly India. As has been established now, Trump singled out India for punitive tariffs, totalling 50 per cent, on the pretext of 25 per cent reciprocal tariffs and 25 per cent tariffs as penalty for buying Russian oil. Interestingly, Trump spared China, which has been importing more Russian oil than India.
Modi had relied a lot on US President Trump. During his previous term, the two had come very close. Modi campaigned for him for his second term in 2020, which was unprecedented for an Indian Prime Minister. Trump, however, lost in 2020.
There were a lot of expectations from the Trump administration after he won the 2024 Presidential elections. For some unexplained reasons, Trump turned hostile towards India and sort of singled out the country for highest tariffs. While several reasons are assumed and attributed for the change in his attitude towards India, it has led to a feeling of betrayal within the country.
Modi, while attending the SCO summit, wanted to convey a message and it was not lost on anyone across the world. Walking together with Putin and Jinping, he was extensively photographed. The pictures made global headlines on the front pages of newspapers like the Financial Times and The Times of London. Even US media outlets like The Washington Post and The New York Times carried Modi’s meetings with Putin and Jinping prominently with photographs of the three leaders together.
The only event reported from SCO summit 2025 was Modi holding hands of two powerful leaders. In fact, Modi was bracketed along with Putin and Jinping as one of the most powerful world leaders.
Also read: Is Jinping planning a new world order?
The optics indeed proved to be quite powerful as it was intended to be. And the message did reach where it was aimed at. While President Trump maintained that India-US relationship was healthy, his trade advisor, the motor-mouth Peter Navarro spit venom, betraying the frustration of someone feeling forlorn and scorned.
But Modi did maintain a perfect balance. He did not go beyond the SCO summit. He indeed met Putin and Jinping, but he never gave the impression that India was forming any particular “bloc” along with these two powers. Modi left immediately after the conclusion of the summit.
Russia and China followed up with their subsequent schedule and meetings in the aftermath of the SCO summit. They were joined by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, something which was angrily reacted to by the US President. He accused the three countries of conspiring against America. Modi had rightly left China ahead of these meetings and the military parade that Putin and Kim attended.
In the SCO summit Modi did convey to the US that it was not short of options in finding alternate allies. Successive regimes in India for the last two-and-a-half decades have really worked hard towards building strong ties with the United States. There was equal reciprocity from the US as well. For that matter, even Trump in his first term, contributed towards strengthening the relationship further.
Not only in India, Trump is facing strong criticism back home in the US also for undoing the efforts and hard work of all these years that has led to India getting alienated from the US.
Perhaps there is some realisation in the US or for Trump that India cannot be treated like any other “third world” country. India is a powerful nation with a strong economy and immense resources. May be Trump acted in haste and without understanding the Indian sensitivities on various issues.
However, his tone of late has changed and softened. “We get along with India very well," Trump said on Wednesday after the SCO summit.
Even while Modi was attending the SCO summit, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, otherwise also known for his pro-India leanings, said “This month, we're spotlighting the people, progress, and possibilities driving us forward. From innovation and entrepreneurship to defence and bilateral ties, it is the enduring friendship between our two peoples that fuels this journey.”
It may be too early to draw any hasty conclusions about the future course of Indo-US relations. But Prime Minister Modi has, so far, been deftly handling the situation - from not reacting to Trump’s repeated claims on India-Pakistan ceasefire, imposition of tariffs to ensuring that the country is not viewed as having joined the Russia-China bloc in any manner. Participating in the SCO summit was a routine matter, although Modi managed to convey a strong message.
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