It’s not always that so much is built into an ‘informal summit’ meeting. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President-for-life Xi Jinping have a few wrinkles to smooth out when they meet in the picturesque city of Wuhan in central China on April 27-28. This meet comes before one scheduled in June for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in the eastern port city of Qingdao.
Though the decision to have the Wuhan summit—“a new starting point”—was made public by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj’s Beijing visit, it’s believed to have been taken during Xi and Modi’s meeting last September. The indications are clear: not only do the two leaders assign importance to streamlining dialogue on issues strategic and economic, when the chill is down and the heat is not up yet, they obviously deem it fit to address it at their level, right at the top. The Chinese foreign minister said the talks would see an “exchange of views on overall, long-term and strategic matters concerning the future of China-India relations’’.
With US President Donald Trump breathing down Beijing’s neck for recalibrating trade ties, the latter would want to not only step up trade relations with India, it seems eager to put contentious issues, like the border dispute, within a framework agreement or a dispute resolution mechanism.
For India and Modi, a trade push before the 2019 polls would be beneficial. India though remains circumspect as Swaraj’s more nuanced statement showed, given China’s deep strategic investment in Pakistan, the Belt and Road Initiative inclusive of the $50-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, via PoK, that includes the vital sea link, besides their play in Sri Lanka and Nepal. Notwithstanding the sense of encirclement, there’s a sense that Modi and Xi would do better to maintain a non-confrontational approach. That is what fosters the growth of trade, and there’s nothing quite like the hum of commerce to increase the chances of peace.