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 two-day summit, beginning Friday.
“President Xi and I will exchange views on a range of issues of bilateral and global importance. We will discuss our respective visions and priorities for national development, particularly in the context of current and future international situation,’’ Modi said in a statement before his departure for China.
He said he would also discuss with the Chinese leader the developments in India-China relations from a strategic and long-term perspective.
Official sources said it would be a ‘free-wheeling’ discussion between the two leaders without aides with the focus being on taking the relationship forward against the backdrop of last summer’s tense military stand-off at Doklam which accentuated the need for such a summit.
There would be no joint statement or communique after the summit during which the two leaders would have a conversation on broader issues that have bedevilled ties between their two nations, sources added.
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. There were a series of meetings between top Indian and Chinese officials before the dates for the Wuhan Summit were finalised.
Indications are that PM Modi and President Xi would spend several hours together over the next two days. They might also go for a walk in the park or a boat-ride together.
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, sources said top leaders at such summits usually don’t go into specifics which are best left to be sorted out by officials. But they indeed give directions to their officials.
”The meeting could be a game-changer in India-China ties…we may see the beginning of a new era in our bilateral ties after the summit, especially on the trade and economic front, in view of the ongoing trade war between the US and China’’ sources added.
The Chinese leader is expected to again invite India to join his signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) even though New Delhi once again signalled its opposition to the project at the SCO ministerial meeting in Beijing on the ground that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a key project of the BRI, runs through 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.