‘India- US Defining Relationship of 21^st Century’: US Embassy minutes before PM Modi’s Meeting with Putin & Xi at SCO Summit in China

By R Anil Kumar

Bengaluru/ New Delhi. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin has emerged as a critical geopolitical flashpoint, bringing together Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping at a time when the United States is recalibrating its global alignments and signalling pressure on India.

The optics of Modi exchanging warm greetings, handshakes, and even animated laughter with Putin and Xi has sent a strong signal of India’s independent foreign policy trajectory—one that seeks to maintain strategic autonomy while navigating great-power competition.

Just minutes before the Modi-Putin meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio highlighted Washington’s view of India as a “defining relationship of the 21st century,” underscoring America’s continuing efforts to woo New Delhi despite ongoing differences over trade, energy security, and global political alignments.

Rubio’s remarks, quoted by the US Embassy in New Delhi, emphasised innovation, entrepreneurship, defence cooperation, and people-to-people ties as pillars of this enduring partnership.

However, given the simultaneous optics of Modi’s interactions with Putin and Xi, the timing of the US statement appears to be a deliberate attempt to reinforce America’s importance to India, even as New Delhi deepens engagement in Eurasian forums.

At the heart of this diplomatic manoeuvering lies the continuing tension between Washington and New Delhi over India’s purchase of Russian oil.

The United States, under President Donald Trump, has imposed hefty 50 percent tariffs on Indian exports in a bid to pressure New Delhi into cutting energy ties with Moscow.

India, however, has firmly rejected these demands, framing its Russian oil imports as a sovereign necessity to guarantee affordable energy security for its 1.4 billion citizens.

New Delhi has described these punitive tariffs as “unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable,” stating unequivocally that it will take “all actions necessary to protect its national interests.”

The warm body language between Modi and Putin at the SCO—walking hand-in-hand and later sharing a light-hearted exchange with Xi—reflects India’s unwillingness to let external pressure dismantle its deep-rooted strategic and defence ties with Russia, which remain indispensable to its national security calculus.

Diplomatically, India scored a major success at Tianjin with the SCO member states issuing a strong condemnation of the recent Pahalgam terror attack, echoing Modi’s long-standing assertion that “double standards in the fight against terrorism are unacceptable.”

The fact that Pakistan, represented by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, had to endorse this declaration is being seen as a significant Indian achievement on the multilateral stage, effectively isolating Islamabad’s stance on terrorism within its own regional neighbourhood.

At the same time, the SCO’s final declaration went beyond South Asia, condemning recent joint US-Israeli military strikes on Iran as violations of international law, state sovereignty, and the UN Charter.

This sharp rebuke of Washington’s actions reflects growing alignment among Eurasian powers against what they perceive as Western unilateralism and interventionism.

The inclusion of this condemnation in the summit’s final statement not only underscores India’s success in shaping consensus around terrorism but also highlights the multipolar undercurrents shaping global security debates.

The Tianjin SCO summit has created a multi-layered narrative for India’s foreign policy. On one hand, Washington continues to court New Delhi, placing it at the centre of its Indo-Pacific strategy and branding it as a cornerstone of 21st-century global order.

On the other, India’s visible bonhomie with Russia and China reflects its determination to preserve strategic autonomy, balance alignments, and prioritise national interests over alliance politics.

The dual-track nature of India’s diplomacy—maintaining close partnerships with the West even while deepening multilateral ties with Eurasian powers—has kept both the US and its rivals guessing.

The coming weeks will reveal whether this balancing act can be sustained amid escalating economic measures from Washington and the continuing global turbulence triggered by conflicts, energy competition, and shifting alliances.