Coronavirus, not border clash, to top agenda at China-India-Russia talks, observers say

Foreign ministers to discuss opportunities for cooperation amid Covid-19 pandemic, Moscow says

China’s Wang Yi, India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov set to hold videoconference on Tuesday

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At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the latest clashes on the China-India border in the Himalayas. Photo: AFP

Published: 7:00pm, 20 Jun 2020Updated: 12:11am, 21 Jun 2020

China and India may use next week’s three-way foreign ministers’ meeting – Russia is also included – to help ease tensions in the wake of their border clash in the Himalayas, although Covid-19 is more likely to top the agenda for the talks, experts said.

Moscow, meanwhile, may see the meeting as an opportunity to assume the role of regional peacekeeper, other said.

China’s Wang Yi, India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov are set to hold a videoconference on Tuesday. There had been some concern that New Delhi would withdraw from the meeting because of the bloody confrontation, but it confirmed its attendance on Thursday.

Thazha Varkey Paul, an international relations professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, said China and India could use the event to address their border concerns and ease tensions.

“My hunch is that the coronavirus will be the key topic, but the Sino-Indian conflict could be discussed in the background,” he said, adding that the meeting would give the two sides an opportunity to “begin the process” of resolving their differences.

The confrontation came at a bad time, and the soldiers’ deaths had fuelled nationalistic sentiment, which meant it would be harder to conduct “open diplomacy”, Paul said.