New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be inviting Chinese President Xi Jinping to India for an “informal meeting” when the two leaders meet on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit later this week, sources told ThePrint.

The SCO Summit is taking place in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek on 13-14 June, Thursday and Friday.

“The Prime Minister had already extended an invite to President Xi during the Wuhan summit last year to visit India for another informal meeting,” an Indian official said.

“But this was not followed up due to the elections (in India), so now he will be reiterating that invitation,” the official added, saying the venue for the meeting had not yet been finalised.

The official also said there was a possibility PM Modi might visit Beijing before the informal summit is finalised.

Moving forward from Wuhan

Last year, in April, Xi and Modi had held an “informal” summit-level meeting at Wuhan, China. Organised in the backdrop of the 2017 Doklam standoff between India and China, it was significant since it was seen to have defused bilateral tensions triggered by alleged Chinese inroads into Bhutanese territory.

At the Wuhan summit, both sides agreed to adhere to a policy of maintaining “peace and tranquility in all areas of the India-China border region in the larger interest of the overall development of bilateral relations”.

This year, the proposed informal meeting will follow China’s decision to allow Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar’s listing as a global terrorist by the United Nations Security Council — an action it has blocked for years.

Sources told ThePrint that the agenda for the summit may include the ongoing trade war between China and the US, and the latter’s ban on Chinese telecom giant Huawei and its 5G rollout plan.

According to A. Gitesh Sarma, Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs, the leaders will be discussing “all crucial issues” when they meet in Bishkek.

“President Xi and Prime Minister Modi are good friends. They had a very successful informal summit at Wuhan last year… Whether they will talk about trade frictions between China and the US, and the spectre of trade frictions between the US and India, such things are not surprising,” Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Hanhui told the media in Beijing.

“I believe this could become an important topic in his bilateral meetings with the related leaders,” Zhang added.

He said China expected India to join Beijing in its fight against the trade policies of the Trump administration as New Delhi was also facing a trade tiff with the US on the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).

Modi, Putin to discuss S-400 missiles system

Modi will also be meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bishkek on the sidelines of the SCO Summit.

Sources said both sides will be discussing the procurement of the $5.4 billion S-400 Triumf air defence system — the Russian purchase the US wants India to cancel under the threat of sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

The deal for the system was signed last year in October during Putin’s visit to India.

The matter is also likely to be discussed during the 25-26 June visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to New Delhi.

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