Indian PM Modi plans first China visit since 2018

(Reuters): Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit China for the first time in over seven years, a government source said on Wednesday, in a further sign of a diplomatic thaw with Beijing as tensions with the United States rise.

Modi will go to China for a summit of the multilateral Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that begins on August 31, the government source, with direct knowledge of the matter, told Reuters. India's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Modi's trip will come at a time when India's relationship with the US faces its most serious crisis in years after President Donald Trump imposed the highest tariffs among Asian peers on goods imported from India, and has threatened an unspecified further penalty for New Delhi's purchases of Russian oil.

Modi's visit to the Chinese city of Tianjin for the summit of the SCO – a Eurasian political and security grouping that includes Russia, will be his first since June 2018.