Xi accepts Modi invite for informal summit

WUHAN 2.0 Chinese President will visit in 2019, hails ‘new starting point’ in ties

QINGDAO: India and China on Saturday agreed on measures to build on the consensus achieved by their leaders during recent talks in Wuhan, including the next informal summit to be held in India in 2019 and steps to maintain peace along the disputed border.

President Xi Jinping accepted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to visit India for the next informal summit. They also agreed – as decided during their first informal summit at Wuhan in April – to maintain strategic communications through various channels, including telephone calls and frequent meetings on the sidelines of multilateral events.

Xi’s visit will be preceded by a flurry of high-level meetings this year, including meetings between the foreign, defence and home ministers and the national security advisers. The Special Representatives on the border issue will also meet this year.

Following the meeting between Modi and Xi on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in the coastal city of Qingdao, the two sides signed agreements on China providing hydrological information for the Brahmaputra river and on exporting rice from India.

Describing the nearly hourlong meeting as “substantial” and “forward looking”, foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale said both leaders made a very positive assessment of developments since they last met in the central city of Wuhan during April 28-29.

Ties between the two neighbours had nosedived following last year’s military standoff at Doklam and also due to several other issues, including China blocking a move to sanction Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar at the UN Security council and Beijing’s opposition to New Delhi’s bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Both sides have said the Wuhan summit helped put the troubled relationship back on an even keel. During his speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 1, Modi had talked about working closely with China and said an “Asia of cooperation” could shape this century.

Though new and old contentious issues remain, there has been a turnaround in bilateral ties since the military standoff was resolved last August.

Tweeting about Saturday’s meeting, China’s envoy to India, Luo Zhaohui, said Xi and Modi had discussed the “implementation of Wuhan consensus and drawing (up a) blueprint for future China-India relations”.

The Indian foreign secretary agreed, saying the talks were “underpinned by the spirit of the Wuhan summit”.

“One of the important outcomes of today’s meeting was that the Chinese side conveyed that they accepted (Modi’s) invitation to President Xi Jinping to have a similar informal summit in India in 2019,” he said.