PM Narendra Modi to meet Xi Jinping, NSG issue likely to be discussed

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday in Tashkent on the sidelines of the annual summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).  The meeting is going to be a crucial one as India is expected to raise NSG issue and seek China’s support for the membership.

Ministry of External Affairs confirmed on Wednesday that PM Modi would be meeting President of China and President of Russia. Amid all this, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said that NSG members had three rounds of unofficial discussions on the entry of India and Pakistan into the grouping.

China has been making ambivalent statements when it comes to the question if it opposes India’s entry into the nuke club or not. China on Tuesday asserted that the door is always open for discussion and it is only raising the procedural questions when it comes to India’s NSG membership bid. India is not a signatory to Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), China has been raising this point since the very beginning.

On Wednesday, China had a different stance altogether saying that it will play a constructive role in talks on India’s NSG bid. Earlier China had poured water on India’s hopes by saying that its NSG membership bid was not even on the Seoul agenda. US and Russia have been in support of India joining the nuke club while China,Turkey, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa and Austria are said to be opposing it.