China's statement before BRICS has no mention of terror, India's NSG bid

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday had met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit.

Beijing: China on Sunday avoided mentioning cross-border terrorism at all, in an early morning statement released following PM Narendra Modi’s talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit on Saturday.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, the statement instead spoke in platitudes with little emphasis on specifics, except where it spoke about expanding cooperation on railway projects and industrial parks.

The statement talked about enriching the bilateral partnership and cooperating within multilateral frameworks and how the relationship was important to protecting the “reasonable interests” in the international arena, said the report. It focused on ‘expanding consensus and mutual trust’.

Furthermore, the statement made no direct or indirect mention of India’s aspirations to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which China has blocked, or the banning of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday met Chinese President Xi Jinping at Goa's Taj Exotica Hotel & Resort, amid rising tensions between the two countries over Beijing’s opposition to a UN ban on JeM chief Masood Azhar and its continued support to Pakistan.

The two leaders will soon hold a dialogue again on New Delhi's bid for membership of the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in which it hopes \"differences\" will be narrowed down, it was reported on Saturday.

President Xi Jinping told Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday that a second round of dialogue on the issue of India's entry into the NSG, over which China has reservations, will be held soon.

The Chinese President's word on the issue came after the Prime Minister told him that India was looking forward to working with China on realising its membership of the NSG.

\"India's broad concerns in the current state have been conveyed to China. The intention was that both sides should narrow down their areas of differences,\" Vikas Swarup, Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs said on Twitter.

Replying to questions whether China had softened its stand on India's membership, Swarup said, \"This shows there is dialogue, a good strategic dialogue. Of course this will narrow differences.\"

Asked whether China reiterated the position that membership of the NSG was by consensus among parties, he replied \"no\".

But on Sunday statement released by the official news agency, Xinhua painted the state of Sino-India relationship in a broad brush and in diplomatic jargon, dashing any immediate Indian hopes of China changing its tune on Azhar and NSG.