BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping called for stepped-up cooperation with India during an informal summit Friday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, amid tensions along their contested border and a rivalry for influence with their smaller neighbors that could determine dominance in Asia.
Xi greeted Modi at the provincial museum in the city of Wuhan at the start of two days of talks between the heads of the world’s two most populous nations.
“Conducting great cooperation by our two great countries can generate worldwide influence,” Xi was quoted as saying by state broadcaster CCTV. Xi said he hoped the meeting would “usher in a new chapter of China-India relations.”
Following their talks, the leaders were to dine lakeside at a resort that had been a favorite of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who formed strong ties with an independent India before relations deteriorated over territorial disputes.
They are to continue talks on Saturday with a walk along the lake, a boat ride and lunch together.
Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Raveesh Kumar tweeted that the leaders would “review the developments in our bilateral relations from a strategic and long-term perspective.”
China-India relations date back centuries but in recent decades have been characterized by competition for leadership in Asia.
The countries fought a border war in 1962 and last year engaged in a 10-week standoff in the neighboring state of Bhutan. New Delhi has also been alarmed by China’s moves to build strategic and economic ties with Indian Ocean nations including Sri Lanka, the Maldives and India’s longtime rival Pakistan.
China for its part resents India’s hosting of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and its control of territory Beijing says belongs to it.
China claims some 35,000 square miles of territory in India’s northeast, while India says China occupies 15,000 square miles of its territory on the Aksai Chin Plateau in the western Himalayas.
