Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will focus on the ‘big picture’ in ties between their two nations when they meet in the Chinese city of Wuhan in an informal setting for their summit on 27-28 April.

It would be a ‘free-wheeling’ discussion with a focus on how to take the bilateral relationship forward against the backdrop of last summer’s tense military stand-off at Doklam which accentuated the need for such a summit, diplomatic sources said.

Sources said the idea for such a summit had come up at the bilateral talks between the two leaders at the last BRICS Summit at Xiamen in China in September 2017. Since then, officials of the two countries had been in touch to give a shape to the proposal.

National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale visited China in recent months and discussed with their Chinese interlocutors the broad contours of the Modi-Xi summit before the dates were fixed. India, thus, becomes only the third country with which President Xi is holding such a conversation after his summits with US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Indications are that PM Modi and President Xi are expected to spend several hours together over the two days. Their conversation will begin soon after Modi reaches Wuhan in the afternoon on 27 April. The two leaders are expected to meet again on 28 April before Modi flies back home.

Asked if the two leaders could also discuss specific issues like India’s efforts to get fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi extradited from Hong Kong, an Indian official, who did not wish to be identified, said top leaders at such summits usually don’t go into specifics which are best left to be sorted out by officials. But the leaders indeed give directions to the officials.

Given the personal chemistry between the two leaders, New Delhi is hopeful that President XI would take into account India’s sensitivities on various issues during their conversation. ”The meeting could be a game-changer in India-China ties,” the official added.

The Chinese leader is expected to again invite India to join his signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). New Delhi has vehemently opposed the project on the ground that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a key project of the BRI, runs through the Indian territory in Jammu and Kashmir illegally occupied by Pakistan. India is also disappointed with China for continuing to block its entry into the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) and listing of Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar listed as a global terrorist by the UN Security Council.

Meanwhile, the Chinese media said India and China must strive to develop and face Western pressure on issues like trade and intellectual property rights. ‘’The (Modi-Xi) meeting can be as significant as the one in 1988 when Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi met, and will set the course for bilateral ties,’’ the state-run Global Times said in an article.

The newspaper said India was changing its ‘radical’ attitude towards China after last year’s Doklam stand-off. Within China, hostility towards India was being replaced by hopes of friendly ties. The two countries need more communication to enhance mutual trust and eliminate the possibility of another border crisis, it added.