Prime Minister
Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President
Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the
G20 Summit in
Japan later this week where the talks will focus on the vexed boundary issue, global economic stability, WTO reforms, bilateral economic partnership and the
Indo-Pacific region in the run up to the second informal summit in India later this year.
The two leaders will carry forward the discussion they had in a bilateral meet on June 13 during the
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Kyrgyz capital
Bishkek.
Modi and Xi will have a couple of occasions to meet in Osaka—the Japanese city that is hosting the G20 summit from June 27 to 29—during the Russia-India-China summit and the informal Brics summit on the sidelines of the G20 meet.
These back-to-back meetings will lead up to the second edition of the informal India-China summit later this year in India, according to people familiar with the developments.
There was a general discussion on the global situation and, in that context, the China-US relationship was discussed at the June 13 meeting by Modi and Xi.
Besides exploring measures to confront geoeconomic challenges amid Sino-US trade war and vexed bilateral issues, Modi and Xi are keen to open a dialogue on the Indo-Pacific region as a confidence-building measure amid China's growing strategic profile in the region that has compelled Delhi to take countermeasures, ET has learnt.
In Bishkek, the meeting was originally scheduled for 20 minutes but went on for longer and both the leaders "had a very warm and a very cordial discussion on a range of subjects".
There were some discussions on the issue of bilateral trade also, including wider market access to reduce the trade deficit.
There has been simplification of the regulatory processes for export of Indian products to China, which included non-Basmati rice, sugar, certain agricultural products and pharmaceuticals, and there is hope in the Indian establishment that now that these regulatory issues are out of the way, there will be a significant uptick in Indian exports of these products to China, ET has learnt.
China will also be taking further steps to reduce the trade deficit over the next few months, ET has learnt. But simultaneously, Beijing, on its part, is seeking long-term visas to expand its businesses in India amid China’s ongoing trade tensions with the US.