• After a gap of more than seven years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to China on August 31 to attend the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

• China is the Chair of the SCO for 2025.

• The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced that Modi will visit the Chinese city of Tianjin from August 31 to September 1, after concluding his two-day trip to Japan.

• PM Modi will visit Japan from August 29 to 30 to participate in the 15th India-Japan annual summit. This will be Modi’s eighth visit to Japan as the Prime Minister. From Japan, the PM will travel to China.

• PM Modi is set to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO summit.

• The PM’s visit to China comes amid efforts by the two sides to repair the bilateral ties that came under severe strain following the deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan valley in June 2020.

• PM Modi last visited China in June 2018 to attend the SCO summit. The Chinese president visited India in October 2019 for the second “informal summit”.

• The eastern Ladakh face-off effectively ended following the completion of the disengagement process from the last two friction points of Demchok and Depsang under an agreement finalised on October 21, 2024.

What is the SCO?

• The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is an intergovernmental organisation founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001. It was founded by the presidents of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

• These countries, except for Uzbekistan, had been members of the Shanghai Five group, formed on April 26, 1996 with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions.

• The SCO Charter was signed during the St Petersburg heads of state meeting in June 2002 and entered into force on September 19, 2003. This is the fundamental statutory document which outlines the organisation’s goals and principles, as well as its structure and core activities.

• The Heads of State Council (HSC) is the supreme decision-making body in the SCO. It meets once a year and adopts decisions and guidelines on all important matters of the organisation. 

• The SCO is an influential economic and security bloc and has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations.

Members of SCO

• The SCO currently comprises ten member states (China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus). 

• Other observer states interested in acceding to full membership are Afghanistan and Mongolia. 

• There are 14 dialogue partners — Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahrain, Egypt, Cambodia, Qatar, Kuwait, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Sri Lanka.

• India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 summit. On June 9, 2017, at the historic summit in Astana, India and Pakistan officially joined the SCO as full-fledged members.

• In July 2023, Iran became a permanent member of the SCO at an India-hosted virtual summit of the grouping.

• The SCO has two permanent bodies — the SCO Secretariat in Beijing and Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. 

• The chairmanship of the SCO is by rotation for a year by the Member States.