Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting China to hold an informal meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan on April 27 and 28.
The development was confirmed following a bilateral meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Sunday.
This will be Modi’s first meeting with Xi after the Chinese leader’s position was elevated to ‘president for life’. It will also be the first one-to-one meeting between the leaders of two of Asia’s biggest economies following the 73-day long Doklam crisis which brought India-China relations to a nadir.
“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 in a press briefing after the meeting.
“I conveyed our appreciation to the Chinese side for their confirmation on resumption of data sharing on Brahmaputra and Sutlej rivers in 2018,” she said adding that the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra will resume this year through Nathu La pass.
Swaraj also said that India and China have agreed to work together on terrorism, climate change, sustainable development, global healthcare, etc.
In his address, Wang Yi said that the meeting between Xi and Modi will be “a complete success and a milestone” in the relationship between the two countries.
Swaraj, who reached Beijing on Saturday evening, was welcomed by Wang Yi at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing today for the meeting. This was Swaraj’s first meeting with Yi after the latter was her first since the Chinese Foreign Minister was elevated to a more powerful position in the Chinese political establishment.
Wang was in March promoted to China’s top diplomatic post of State Councillor. Their last meeting was in December on the sidelines of the BRICS Foreign Ministers meet.
Swaraj’s China visit comes a week after India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met China’s senior-most diplomat Yang Jiechi in Shanghai.
The Union Minister, who is on a four-day China visit, will also attend the SCO ministerial-level meeting on 24 April before leaving for Mongolia for a two-day visit on 25 April – a first by an Indian EAM in 42 years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Mongolia in May 2015.
PM Modi is scheduled to visit Qingdao in north-eastern China, near the Korean peninsula, in June for the 2018 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.
Pakistan is one of the member states in the eight-nation SCO. Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia have an observer status.