Agreement On Border Management, Direct Flights Between India And China: PM Modi In Meeting With Xi Jinping

 

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin on Sunday. In his opening remarks during delegation-level talks with the Chinese President, PM Modi said, "We had a productive meeting in Kazan. Our relationship has taken a positive direction. There is peace and stability on the borders. Kailash Mansarovar Yatra has resumed. Direct flights are also being started between the two countries". "With cooperation between our nations, the interests of 2.8 billion people are associated - this is needed for humanity," he said, adding that both countries are committed to taking the relations forward on the basis of mutual trust, respect and sensitivity.

 

Thanking the Chinese president for the invitation, the Prime Minister said,” I congratulate you on China's successful chairmanship of the SCO. I thank you for the invitation to visit China and for our meeting today." The meeting between the two leaders lasted for 55 minutes. Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his response, said, "China and India are two ancient civilisations in the East. We are the world's two most populous countries, and we are also important members of the Global South. We both shoulder the historical responsibility of improving the well-being of our two peoples, promoting the solidarity and rejuvenation of developing countries, and promoting the progress of human society". He further said that it is the right choice for both countries to be friends who have good neighbourly and amicable ties, partners who enable each other's success, and to have "the dragon and the elephant come together".

 

The two-day SCO summit has assumed greater significance in the face of Washington's tariff tussle, which has impacted nearly all leading economies worldwide. PM Modi landed in China on Saturday, his first visit to the country after a gap of over seven years. "Landed in Tianjin, China. Looking forward to deliberations at the SCO Summit and meeting various world leaders," PM Modi said in a social media post, shortly after arriving here from Japan in the second and final leg of his two-nation trip. Modi was accorded a warm welcome at his hotel by a group of artists with Indian classical music and dance. The prime minister is also expected to hold bilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a number of other leaders on the sidelines of the SCO summit. Chinese Ambassador to India Xu Feihong warmly welcomed PM Modi in Tianjin and expressed confidence that the "visit will inject new momentum into China-India relations." "Warmly welcome Prime Minister Modi to China to attend the SCO summit. Confident that this visit will inject new momentum into China-India relations," he said in a post on X.

 

Ahead of his trip to Tianjin, Modi said it is important for India and China to work together to bring stability to the world economic order. In an interview with Japan's The Yomiuri Shimbun, Modi said stable, predictable, and amicable bilateral relations between India and China can have a positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity. "Given the current volatility in the world economy, it is also important for India and China, as two major economies, to work together to bring stability to the world economic order," Modi said in the interview published on Friday. Modi's trip to China comes less than a fortnight after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited India. Following Wang's wide-ranging talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the two sides unveiled a series of measures for a "stable, cooperative and forward-looking" relationship between the two sides.

 

The measures included joint maintenance of peace along the contested frontier, reopening border trade and resuming direct flight services at the earliest. In the last few months, both sides have initiated a series of measures to reset their ties that came under severe strain following the deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley in June 2020. The prime minister last visited China in June 2018 to attend the SCO summit. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India in October 2019 for the second "informal summit". The eastern Ladakh face-off effectively ended following completion of the disengagement process from the last two friction points of Demchok and Depsang under an agreement finalised on October 21 last year.