Modi-Xi To Hold Unprecedented Informal Summit in China’s Wuhan City On April 27-28

Outlook, in an exclusive last week, had first reported about the possible one-on-one meeting between Modi and Xi.

Updated on: 22 April 2018 6:16 pm

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold an unprecedented informal summit in China's Wuhan city from April 27 to 28.

Prime Minister Modi will be visiting the central Chinese city at the invitation of President Xi, Wang said at a joint media event with visiting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj after their talks.

"The two leaders will have communications of a strategic nature concerning the once in a century shifts going on in the world. They will also exchange views on overarching long-term and strategic matters concerning the future of China-India relations," Wang said.

"The informal summit will be an important occasion for them to exchange views on bilateral and international matters from an over-arching and long-term perspective with the objective of enhancing mutual communication at the level of leaders," Swaraj said.

Outlook, in an exclusive last week,had first reported about the possible one-on-one meeting between Modi and Xi.

The report had then quoted sources saying that the main aim of this high-level engagement is to bring the two neighbours in a more cooperative plane where they face the challenges of the world together and how they want to help their respective people in meeting their aspiration and dream.

“The Indian PM and Chinese President’s meeting slated to take place in less than 10 days, is being compared with the one Rajiv Gandhi had with Deng Xiaoping in 1988. That engagement had helped in changing the course of Sino-Indian relations, paving the way for a more cooperative bilateral tie and bringing peace and tranquility along their disputed boundary,” said the Outlook report.

“The parallel between the two meetings, though separated by 30 years, should also be kept in mind. Rajiv Gandhi had undertaken his China visit on the last leg of his primeministership and at a time when the Bofors scandal had politically marginalized him. Modi also undertakes this important visit towards the last leg of his tenure and though, he may not be politically as marginalized as Rajiv, the mounting criticism on his government for a number of issues within the country cannot be denied,” the report added.

Swaraj is in China for talks with Wang and to take part in the two-day meeting of Foreign Ministers of the eight-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) from tomorrow.

Informed sources told PTI that it will be an informal summit meeting between Xi and Modi during which both leaders will try to work out a new paradigm for the bilateral ties bogged down with a host of disputes and differences.

This will be fourth visit of Modi to China after he came to power in 2014. He is again due to visit China to take part in the SCO summit to be held at Qingdao city on June 9-10.

The Modi-Xi summit meeting is taking place in the backdrop of series of high level interactions between both the two countries starting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang's visit to India in December, the first after Dokalam standoff.

It was followed by two meetings between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi and the visit early this year by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale to Beijing.

The two countries also held 11th Joint Economic Group meeting and the fifth Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) here recently.

Besides meetings between officials from the two foreign ministries on both sides held working mechanism meeting on border affairs and cross border rivers as well disarmament and non-proliferation dialogue in which India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was discussed and culminated in today's talks between Swaraj and Wang.

(With agency inputs)