Resetting Relations

The informalmeeting between PrimeMinister NarendraModi and Chinese President Xi Jinping inMamallapuram presents an occasion to understand the two countries’ concerns and to address important issues relating to trade and investment.

- John Cherian

BOTH INDIA AND CHINA HAVE DESCRIBED the second “informal summit” meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping near Chennai in the second week of October as more significant than the bilateral meetings that they held in the past. The two leaders had six hours of direct talks in the course of two days at the summit. Xi, hailing the success of the talks, invited Modi for another informal summit in China next year. Modi was quick to accept the invitation.

Modi, speaking before the delegation-level talks between the two sides, said both countries had decided “to be sensitive to each other’s concerns”. Xi reciprocated by stating that the “informal summits have produced visible progress” in bilateral relations. “We have deeper strategic communication, more diverse people to people and cultural exchanges, and closer cooperation on multilateral occasions,” he said.

The first “informal summit” between the two leaders was held in the Chinese city of Wuhan in March last year. The Modi government was anxious at the time to extricate itself from the diplomatic and military quagmire it had got itself into in Doklam. The Chinese government was upset when India chose to escalate a minor boundary dispute between China and Bhutan into a military standoff that lasted for 73 days in 2017. The long-running Doklam incident took place at a time when the Chinese Communist Party was busy preparing to celebrate its centenary in a big way.