Xi wanted to meet Zelenskyy, Modi beat him to it. ‘Opportunist’ jibe is China’s frustration

News Snapshot:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has irked China, whose President Xi Jinping was trying to project himself as the peacemaker-in-chief. Chinese experts called Modi an ‘opportunist’ and a ‘deceiver’ after he met with Zelenskyy in Japan. Modi’s assurances to Ukraine – while sidestepping the economic impact of the war – would be uncomfortable for Beijing because it shows New Delhi is maximising its national interest. But Beijing shouldn’t be a factor in New Delhi’s equations and its agnostic and humanitarian approach to resolving the Ukraine war must continue. “I don’t see this as a political...