PM Modi to meet Xi Jinping shortly

Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in China on Saturday after a gap of seven years on a visit that is being keenly watched in view of the sudden downturn in India-US ties triggered by Washington’s policies on trade and tariff.

Modi is visiting Tianjin in northern China primarily to attend the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit on August 31 and September 1. However, his scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday on the margins of the summit has assumed greater significance in the face of the US tariffs that have impacted almost all leading economies across the world.

Modi and Xi are expected to take stock of the India-China economic ties and deliberate on steps to further normalise relations. The PM is also expected to hold bilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a number of other leaders on the sidelines of the summit.

Modi had last visited China in June 2018 to attend the SCO summit while the Chinese President had toured India for an informal summit in October 2019. The relations between the two nations suffered a setback following a military stand-off in eastern Ladakh in April 2020.

The PM had last met Xi at Kazan (Russia) in October 2024 on the sidelines of the BRCIS summit. Since the meeting, both sides have been working on confidence-building measures and have announced the resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra through Tibet.

“Landed in Tianjin, China. Looking forward to deliberations at the SCO summit and meeting various world leaders,” the PM said in a social media post, shortly after arriving in China from Japan in the second and final leg of his two-nation trip. Ahead of his trip to Tianjin, he said it was important for India and China to work together to bring stability to the world economic order.

In an interview to Japanese newspaper ‘The Yomiuri Shimbun’, Modi said stable, predictable and amicable bilateral relations between India and China could have a positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity.

“Given the current volatility in 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 Adviser Ajit Doval, the two sides unveiled a series of measures for a “stable, cooperative and forward-looking” relationship. The measures included joint maintenance of peace along the contested frontier, reopening border trade and resuming direct flight services at the earliest.