India’s Prime Minister Modi to visit China following end of border stand-off

Prakash Singh | AFP | Getty Images

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) talks to Chinese President Xi Jingping during the BRICS meeting in Goa, India, on October 16, 2016.

India’s prime minister has confirmed he will visit China next week for a summit of the world’s leading emerging market economies – a day after Beijing and New Delhi agreed to withdraw troops from a disputed border area in the Himalayas.

Narendra Modi will travel to the coastal city of Xiamen to attend the gathering of BRICS leaders from September 3 to 5, India’s external affairs ministry confirmed on Tuesday.

The other BRICS nations are Brazil, Russia and South Africa. The bloc covers 40 per cent of the world’s population and 20 per cent of its gross domestic product.

Modi will visit Myanmar after Xiamen, the ministry said in a statement.

The announcement came a day after China and India agreed to halt a two-month stand-off on the remote Doklam plateau. The dispute began in mid-June when China began building a road in the area where China, India and Bhutan meet.

The face-off has seen China and India mobilizing troops to the area, while the Chinese military staged drills nearby on the Tibetan Plateau and in the Indian Ocean.

As border tensions continued to simmer there had been speculation that Modi might skip the summit in southeastern China. The annual meeting has been attended by the top leaders of the five member nations since it was set up in 2009.

Next week’s trip will be Modi’s second visit to China as prime minister since he came to power in 2014. His last three-day visit was in May 2015.

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