India PM to host China’s Xi for informal summit

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake hands   

NEW DELHI (Reuters), 29 May, 2019  -   Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host Chinese President Xi Jinping this year for an informal summit, an Indian foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday, after meeting several times over the past year to try to defuse tension.   

The two held their first informal summit in Wuhan in April 2018 and at that meeting Xi had accepted Modi’s invitation to come to India for a second meeting.   

“The two sides are in touch, through diplomatic channels, to finalize the date and venue for the meeting,” the spokesman said. Modi may also hold his first bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in over two years on the sidelines of the G20 summit in June in Osaka, Japan, a source aware of the development said.   

Both Modi and Trump are expected to talk again at the U.N. General Assembly session in September in New York, the source said, declining to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to the media.