The Indian Prime Minister has visited China five times since taking office in 2014. This is the most number of times any Prime Minister has visited the neighbouring country. His last visit was in 2018 before the border tensions escalated between the two nations over the issue of the Doklam standoff and Pangong Lake. These visits have increased economic engagement and connectivity, have a joint development goal, and settled border-related conflicts. Let’s look at the timeline, details, motive, and impact of these five visits on China India affairs and how these have affected India-China relations in 2022.

Timeline of PM’s Visits

  • As a prime minister, Narendra Modi first visited China from May 14 to 16, 2015. At that time, Chinese President Xi Jinping received Modi at Xi’an, his hometown.
  • During his second visit to China, Modi went to Hangzhou for the G20 Summit in 2016 (September 4 and 5)  
  • His third visit was to Xiamen in 2017 (September 3 to 5) for BRICS Summit
  • His fourth visit was to Wuhan in 2018 (April 27 to 28) for an informal summit
  • He went to Qingdao again in 2018 (June 9 to 11) for the SCO summit.

Impact of the Visits

  • First Visit (2015): During his first visit as the Prime Minister, India and China signed a record 24 agreements worth more than $22 billion in telecom, steel, solar energy and films, education and railways. The Indian Railways and China National Railways signed an action plan to improve railway sector cooperation. There was also an MoU on exchange programmes for students and ‘Space Cooperation Outline’. To resolve the border dispute, China and India decided to set up a hotline between the military headquarters of the two nations to build trust between the militaries and countries. Modi also announced that India had decided to enable Chinese nationals to have the electronic visa on arrival facility. The impact of the visit was a slight improvement in trust and confidence-building between the two nations and hence the betterment of India-China relations.
  • Second Visit (2016): Before the 2016 G20 summit in Hangzhou, India-China relations had gone sour since China had vetoed India’s petitions to ban Jaish-e-Mohammad head Masood Azhar in the United Nations Security Council. It was also against India being a part of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). In the meeting with Xi Jinping during his visit, PM Modi raised concerns over China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a multi-billion dollar infrastructure plan being laid through Pakistan occupied Kashmir. PM Modi told Xi Jinping to ensure bilateral ties and their development and how important it was to respect mutual and each other’s aspirations, strategic interests and concerns.
  • Third Visit (2017): In 2017, the Doklam standoff took place between the Indian and Chinese armies over the construction of a road by China in a tri-junction border area. It was resolved after 73 days by diplomatic means. When PM Modi visited Xiamen in 2017 for the BRICS summit, a bilateral meeting was held between PM Modi and Xi Jinping. The two leaders set the course for a fresh start to ensure peace at the borders and discussed that the differences should not be allowed to develop into disputes. They decided to have a new round of engagements and mechanisms to resolve the differences. The impact of the PM’s visit was such that for the first time, China did not object to India’s demands to list Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashar-e-Taiba and Haqqani Network as international terrorist groups at the BRICS summit.
  • Fourth Visit (2018): PM Modi visited China for the fourth time in 2018. He went to the city of Wuhan, where he and Xi Jinping had a series on one to one informal meetings. With the issue of Doklam still being fresh, both the leaders decided to issue strategic guidance to their respective armies to build mutual trust and understanding and have strong communication. During this visit, no formal agreements were announced as the main motive of the leaders was to improve India-China relations and plan for a strategic long term partnership. 
  • Fifth Visit (2018): Six weeks after the informal meeting, Modi and Xi Jinping met again at Qingdao on the sidelines of the SCO summit. Two agreements were signed on this occasion. The first one allowed India to export non-Basmati rice to China. Earlier, China said that rice from India did not meet its “phytosanitary” concerns. The second agreement was to share hydrological data on the Brahmaputra. The Brahmaputra’s origin is in Tibet. From there, it flows into Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. For India, hydrological data helps check floods in the Northeast. Before that, too, China was supposed to share the hydrological data. But it was put on hold due to the Doklam standoff in 2017.

Conclusion

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s five visits to China till date have resulted in increased economic engagement and connectivity and a common development goal between the two countries. These visits have somewhat also impacted India-China relations 2022. Due to these visits, many significant strategic developments occurred, such as China agreeing to list JeM and LeT as terrorist groups, setting up a hotline between the military headquarters of the two nations, sharing of hydrological data on the Brahmaputra China, and agreements worth more than $22 billion in areas such as telecom, steel, solar energy, films, education and railways.