By Anjali Sharma
WASHINGTON – White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro on Tuesday said that it was a “shame” to see Modi, the leader of the world’s biggest democracy, “getting in bed” with Xi and Putin, the two “biggest authoritarians”.
Navarro has reacted sharply to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s SCO Summit bonhomie with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
He said that it was a “shame” to see Modi, the leader of the world’s biggest democracy, “getting in bed” with Xi and Putin, the two “biggest authoritarians”.
“That doesn’t make any sense. I’m not sure what he’s thinking particularly since India has been in a cold war – and sometimes a hot war with China for decades,” Navarro told reporters on Monday while responding to a query on the SCO Summit.
Navarro said that the US hopes Modi will come around and support the US, Europe and Ukraine.
“We hope the Indian leader comes around to seeing that he needs to be with us and Europe and Ukraine and not Russia,” he added.
The global attention fixed on the SCO Summit, the three leaders were having a pull-aside conversation before the SCO family photo session.
Their meeting is widely seen as a message to US President Trump about the rise of a new world order amid his “bullying” behaviour.
Modi and Putin later travelled together to the venue of their bilateral meeting. According to Russian media reports, Modi and Putin held a secret conversation inside the latter’s car for about 50 minutes.
It it was not clear what they discussed but speculation is rife that the Indian PM conveyed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s message to Putin.
Zelenskyy had called Modi a day before his scheduled bilateral with Putin on the sidelines of the SCO Summit.
Modi held a bilateral meeting with Xi where the two leaders agreed to take the India-China cooperation forward for the welfare of the people of the two countries.
