Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday greeted each other and they were seen chatting casually at a welcome dinner event organized on the sidelines of G20 Summit 2022 in Bali, Indonesia.
PM Modi will have separate bilateral meetings with a number of leaders on the sidelines of the summit but it was not immediately clear if a separate official meeting between Modi and Xi will be held or not.
However, the informal meeting between the two state-heads is the first one-on-one interaction between the duo after the border clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley in June 2020.
A live video feed for the media from the welcome dinner hosted by Indonesian President Joko Widodo for G20 delegates showed the exchange between the two leaders.
The two-day summit begins Tuesday morning, and was attended by US President Joe Biden, his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak among heads from 20 countries and the European Union who make up the group.
MEA said PM Modi will meet with leaders of several other participating countries on the sidelines of the G20 summit and review the progress in India’s bilateral relations with them.
There had been some speculation over a possible bilateral meeting between the two leaders on the margins of the Group of 20 Summit, which began Tuesday. But the agenda made known by both sides so far does not slot such a meeting.
In September, PM Modi and President Xi came face-to-face at the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Uzbek city of Samarkand for the first time since the start of the border standoff in eastern Ladakh. There was no report of a handshake or exchange of pleasantries between Modi and Xi at that time.
(With PTI input)
