The defence ministers of both India and China will come face to face at a conclave at Phnom Penh in Cambodia on Tuesday and Wednesday next – just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping had a handshake during the G-20 summit at Bali in Indonesia.
Phnom Penh will host a meeting of the defence ministers of the 10 ASEAN (Association of the South-East Asian Nations) countries as well as the eight dialogue partners of the bloc – India, China, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Australia, Russia and the United States – on Tuesday and Wednesday. The defence ministers of India and China – Rajnath Singh and Wei Fenghe – will attend the ‘ADMM Plus’ (ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus) conclave.
The ADMM Plus will also bring to Phnom Penh the defence ministers of the four member-nations of the Quad – a coalition forged by India, Australia, Japan and the United States to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region.
A spokesperson of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in New Delhi on Sunday confirmed that Singh would have bilateral meetings with his counterparts from other countries on the sideline of the conclave.
A press release issued by the MoD did not reveal whom the defence minister would meet for bilateral talks in Phnom Penh.
Sources in New Delhi neither confirmed nor ruled out the possibility of a bilateral meeting between Singh and Wei.
They had last met for bilateral talks on the sideline of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Moscow in September 2020 – about two-and-a-half months after the violent face-off between the soldiers of the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army at Galwan Valley had taken the military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two neighbouring nations to a flashpoint.
Modi and Xi exchanged courtesies during the G-20 summit at Bali in Indonesia last Tuesday. It was the first sign of a thaw between the two leaders after the military stand-off along the LAC in eastern Ladakh started in April-May 2020. The two leaders however had no formal bilateral meeting on the sideline of the summit.
The stand-off along the LAC in eastern Ladakh could not be resolved completely even as more than two-and-a-half years passed away since it started, although protracted negotiations led to mutual withdrawal of troops from some of the face-off points.
Singh will also have a separate meeting with the ASEAN defence ministers.
India and the ASEAN this month elevated their relationship to ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ – as a mark of celebration of the 30 years of ties.
Two two sides also agreed to add more military heft to the relations with a maritime war drill early next year.
New Delhi’s move to step up maritime security cooperation with the 10 South East Asian nations came amid China’s growing belligerence, not only along its disputed boundary with India in the Himalayas, but also in the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region.
The conclave in Phnom Penh on Tuesday and Wednesday will also offer an opportunity for a bilateral meeting between Singh and US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin.
Modi and the US President Joe Biden last week had a bilateral meeting on the sideline of the G-20 summit in Bali.