#Narendra Modi# Narendra Modi China# Narendra Modi China visit# Galwan Clash# India-China Relationship
IBNS-CMEDIA: Indian PM Narendra Modi will visit China later this month, his first trip to the neighbouring nation since the 2020 Galwan clash, media reports said.
Ahead of visiting China, Modi will also travel to Japan on August 30.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Tianjin, China, to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit from August 31 to September 1, reported India Today.
Before attending the SCO summit, PM Modi is scheduled to visit Japan on August 30, where he will participate in the annual India-Japan Summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. From there, he will head to China, sources told the Indian news channel.
Trump factor
Modi will be visiting China at a time when US President Donald Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff and a penalty on imports from India.
The US President went ahead to even threaten to increase the tariff owing to New Delhi’s oil imports from Russia, which is engaged in a war with Ukraine.
Hitting back at the White House, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) cleared it will take all necessary steps to safeguard its “national interests and economic security”.
India accused the US and European Union jointly for its alleged double standards citing how both Washington and EU are engaged in trade and imports from Moscow.
Galwan Clash
The Galwan skirmish erupted from a dispute over a temporary bridge built by the Chinese in the Galwan River valley in Ladakh.
On June 15, 2020, Indian and Chinese troops engaged in a six-hour clash in the rugged terrain of Ladakh, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with makeshift weapons such as stones, batons, and iron rods.
The face-off occurred in near-complete darkness and freezing temperatures, leading to fatalities as soldiers fell or were pushed from ridges.
Twenty Indian soldiers were martyred in the clash, while China officially acknowledged four casualties, although reports indicate higher Chinese losses, as soldiers drowned in the choppy waters of the Galwan River.
Among the Indians, Colonel B Santosh Babu, the Commanding Officer of the 16th Bihar Regiment, was martyred during the unprovoked aggression by PLA troops.
The Galwan clashes highlighted China’s aggressive stance towards its neighbouring countries.
Many observers on social media noted similarities between the Chinese attack on Philippine navy ships and the 2020 Galwan Valley clash.
Trump threatens India again with harsh tariffs in next 24 hours over Russian oil purchase
India Blooms News Service | @indiablooms | Aug 05, 2025, at 09:23 pm#US# India# Donald Trump# Trump tariffs# Russian Oil# Ukraine War
US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would increase the tariffs imposed on Indian imports “very substantially” over the next 24 hours due to India’s continued purchases of Russian oil.
“India has not been a good trading partner, because they do a lot of business with us, but we don’t do business with them. So we settled on 25 percent but I think I’m going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they’re buying Russian oil,” he told CNBC in a televised interview.
This comes a day after Trump threatened that he would “substantially” raise US tariffs on India over its purchase of Russian oil, stating that the South Asian country doesn’t care for the lives lost in Ukraine.
“India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits. They don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA,” he said without specifying what tariff level he had in mind.
As a response to that, India had criticised the United States and European Union for singling out Indian refiners over their exports of crude.
In a strongly worded statement, India has hit back at the US after Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs on goods from India over its purchase of Russian oil and said targeting it “is unjustified and unreasonable” when the criticising countries themselves “indulge in trade” with Moscow.
The Ministry of External Affairs, in a statement, also countered the stance of the European Union for singling out Indian refiners over their exports of crude.
“India has been targeted by the United States and the European Union for importing oil from Russia after the commencement of the Ukraine conflict,” the MEA statement said.
Justifying its shift to Russia for crude, the government said that while India’s imports are “a necessity compelled by the global market situation”, the nations criticising it are themselves “indulging in trade with Russia”.
“In fact, India began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict. The United States at that time actively encouraged such imports by India for strengthening global energy markets stability,” it said.
“India’s imports are meant to ensure predictable and affordable energy costs to the Indian consumer. They are a necessity compelled by global market situation. However, it is revealing that the very nations criticizing India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia. Unlike our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion,” the statement said.
India said the European Union in 2024 had a bilateral trade of Euro 67.5 billion in goods with Russia. In addition, it had trade in services estimated at Euro 17.2 billion in 2023.
“This is significantly more than India’s total trade with Russia that year or subsequently. European imports of LNG in 2024, in fact, reached a record 16.5mn tonnes, surpassing the last record of 15.21mn tonnes in 2022,” the statement said.
India said Europe-Russia trade includes not just energy, but also fertilizers, mining products, chemicals, iron and steel and machinery and transport equipment.
“Where the United States is concerned, it continues to import from Russia uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its EV industry, fertilizers as well as chemicals,” it said.
“In this background, the targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable. Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security,” the statement said.
