Modi, Xi could meet 3 more times in 2018 to build better relations: China

Xi had hosted Modi in the central Chinese city of X'ian in 2015 and last week the two leaders met in Wuhan

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping have the opportunity to meet at least three times this year to take forward their friendship forged during their unprecedented informal summit in Wuhan, China's ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui said today.

Addressing a seminar here on the 'Wuhan Summit: Sino-India Relations and its Way Forward', Luo said the two leaders reached broad consensus on the overarching, long-term and strategic issues of global and bilateral importance during their two-day summit in the central Chinese city last week.

The summit in Wuhan was seen as an effort by India and China to rebuild trust and improve ties that were hit by the 73-day-long Dokalam standoff last year.

Giving a first-hand briefing to scholars and journalists on the informal summit, which he dubbed as a "very special event" in Chinese diplomacy, Luo noted that President Xi has never hosted a foreign leader twice outside the Chinese capital Beijing.

Xi had hosted Modi in the central Chinese city of X'ian in 2015 and last week the two leaders met in Wuhan.

"This shows that China attaches high importance to its relations with India," he said.

The envoy said the idea of holding an informal summit was first mooted by Prime Minister Modi when he met President Xi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Astana, Kazakhstan in 2017. After that, the two side worked very hard to make it happen, he said.

Luo said President Xi and Prime Minister Modi will have three more opportunities this year to carry forward their fruitful and wide-ranging conversations in Wuhan.

The ambassador said the two leaders could meet at the next Shanaghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit to be held in June in Qingdao, China, the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa and the next G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He said the officials concerned of the two countries were closely working to facilitate these meetings and implement the consensus reached between the two leaders in Wuhan.

The ambassador said the two leaders had in-depth discussions and reached consensus on their respective visions for national development as well as domestic and foreign policies.

China and India, the two biggest developing countries and emerging economies --each with a population of over one billion, are important countries with strategic autonomy.

"A peaceful, stable and balanced relationship between China and India is an important positive factor for the stability of the world," he said. (more)

Barack Obama cancels Rodrigo Duterte talks after insult

Barack Obama cancels meeting with new Philippine President Duterte

US President Barack Obama has cancelled what would have been his first meeting with Rodrigo Duterte, according to a White House spokesman, hours after the Philippine leader described his American counterpart in vulgar terms.

Duterte called Obama a "son of a whore", saying that he would not be lectured by the US leader on human rights, according to AFP news agency.

Inside Story - Can Rodrigo Duterte win the war on illegal drugs?

Duterte's tirade came as he bristled at warnings he would face questioning by the US president at their scheduled meeting over his war against drugs in the Philippines, which has claimed more than 2,400 lives in just over two months.

"You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum," Duterte told a news conference shortly before flying to Laos to attend a summit on Monday.

"We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me," he said.

However, a statement released by the Philippine president on Tuesday expressed regret for the tirade against his US counterpart.

"While the immediate cause was my strong comments to certain press questions that elicited concern and distress, we also regret it came across as a personal attack on the US president," the statement said.

Duterte was due to hold a bilateral meeting with Obama on Tuesday afternoon on the sidelines of a gathering of global leaders hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vientiane, the capital of the Laos.

READ MORE: The Philippines, where bodies pile up, but no one talks

PM Modi to meet Chinese president; will attempt to win support for NSG membership

M Modi to meet Chinese president; will attempt to win support for NSG membership

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday in the Uzbekistan capital Tashkent in an attempt to win Beijing's support for India's membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Modi will be meeting President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit meeting that is currently on in Tashkent. The SCO is a Eurasian political, economic, and military organisation which was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Highly placed sources said that the meeting between PM Modi and President Xi Jinping would be an exclusive one-on-one discussion, where the top agenda would be to seek China's support for India's membership in the NSG.

China, till now, has been playing the role of a dampener on the issue of clearing the way for India's admission to the NSG, by repeatedly stating that it is not on the agenda of the grouping which began its plenary session in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday.

On the other hand, the United States has called on the participating governments of the NSG to support India's application for membership.

State Department spokesperson John Kirby said in a press briefing that Washington has not changed its stand regarding India's application for membership to the elite group. Read more.