The informal two-day summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Chinese city of Wuhan last week was carefully planned to showcase how the two nations can productively conduct business.To get more shanghai news, you can visit shine news official website.

But it was also a testament to the resolve and flexibility of India’s China policy. Modi, like his predecessors Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has been quick to pivot from hawk to dove and unreservedly engage Beijing in good faith whenever an opportunity in bilateral relations presents itself.

With Modi having extended an invitation to Xi for 2019, the Wuhan summit could become the first of many semi-scripted meetings to be held on an annual or biennial basis. Chinese and Indian leaders already gather annually at the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summits and meet on the sidelines of major multilateral events, such as the G20 Leaders Summit. India’s sharpest diplomats also typically rotate through the ambassadorship position in Beijing prior to their elevation to the foreign secretary post and, potentially thereafter, national security adviser roles.
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With an informal leaders-level summit now added to this mix, a critical bilateral relationship appears to be cemented.

The Xi-Modi meeting was notable on two counts: for what was agreed upon and (with requisite political will) can be expected to be implemented; and for what the meeting denotes within the broader context of three decades of Sino-Indian ties since normalisation in the late-1980s.With regard to near-term deliverables, both leaders issued a strategic guidance to their respective militaries to lower the temperature on their disputed frontier and ensure predictability in the management of border affairs. A limited joint-patrolling concept that has been successfully piloted at two sensitive points on their disputed boundary is likely to be extended to other areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The pressure that both sides had heaped along their unmarked boundary over the past few years that culminated in the stand-off last summer at Doklam – ironically one of the few resolved points along their vast Himalayan frontier – is expected to gradually ease.The Sino-Indian frontier serves both as a dispute and a barometer. From New Delhi’s perspective, peace and tranquillity – or lack thereof – along the border is defined by the long historical context of the territorial dispute (as well as, to a lesser extent, a reflection of creeping assertiveness in China’s foreign policy).

In Beijing’s more strategically minded view, however, the frontier is as an expedient pressure point to signal disaffection at New Delhi’s overall China policies. It is also a land bridge to restore the spirit of good neighbourliness when circumstances merit.