Indo-China ties

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said India and China understand each other much better following his meetings with President Xi Jinping.

“Our informal summit in Wuhan in April this year was a new initiative,” Modi said in an interview to the published yesterday. “It allowed us to talk to each other in a very frank manner and to understand each other much better.”

Modi’s comments came one year after Indian and Chinese troops were locked in a stand-off for over two months on the Doklam plateau at the India-Bhutan-China international trijunction last year.

Modi and Xi met on the sidelines of the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit in Xiamen, China, in September last year.

In April this year, India-China ties were reset at an informal summit between Modi and Xi in Wuhan where they agreed to maintain peace along their disputed border over which the two countries went to war in 1962.

The two leaders again met again on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in the Chinese city of Qingdao in June and then in Johannesburg last month on the sidelines of this year’s BRICS Summit. In the interview, Modi also referred to the Astana Consensus reached between India and China in which both sides agreed to not let differences become disputes.

“These high-level engagements have enabled us to take forward the ‘Astana spirit’ in our relations - that is, not to allow differences to become disputes and to work together as large developing and neighbouring countries in all possible areas of cooperation, not only for the benefit of the people of our two countries but also for the betterment of the region and the world,” Modi said.