Mamallapuram Spirit: 2nd India-China informal summit kicks off with PM Modi giving Xi Jinping tour of historic sites

The second India-China informal summit began in the coastal town of Mamallapuram on Friday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi giving a tour to Chinese President Xi Jinping of UNESCO world heritage sites. 

Modi took Jinping to sites that are thousands of year old. The tour included visits to Arjuna’s Penance, Krishna's butter ball, Panch Rathas and Shore Temple and was followed by a cultural extravaganza that lasted for 2 hours.

During Jinping's 24-hour visit, both leaders will be spending 6 hours together in Tamil Nadu.

Modi received President Xi at the Arjuna's Penance in traditional south Indian attire--veshti (Dhoti worn the south Indian way) and angavastram--A south Indian garment draped over the shoulder. Both leaders were seen talking to each other with PM Modi explaining Xi the history of the sites. They shook hands five times during the entire period and drank coconut water at the Panch Ratha site where they sat for 15 minutes. 

PM Modi has gifted President Xi Nachiarkoil -- branched Annam lamp - and Thanjavur Painting of dancing Saraswathi. Earlier, Chinese President arrived in Chennai at around afternoon with PM Modi tweeting in Mandarin, Tamil and English to welcome him. 

This is the third visit of the Chinese president to India since 2014 when he first visited Ahmedabad. In 2016, he visited Goa for the BRICS summit. 

Jinping is accompanied by 90 officials, including top Chinese leadership which include Ding Xuexiang - an important aide of President who is also the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China; Yang Jiechi, Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office; Foreign Minister Wang Yi; and He Lifeng, minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission.

President Xi met 8 top Indian officials including External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, National security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval,  Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale, Joint Secretary PMO Gopal Baglay, Indian envoy to China Vikram Misri at the Shore Temple.  

PM Modi also hosted a dinner for the visiting leader in the backdrop of historic Shore temple at the Mahabalipuram beach in which Tamil delicacies - both non-vegetarian and vegetarian - were on the menu.  

On Saturday morning, Modi will again join Jinping and around 11 am, before the delegation-level talks, they will be making opening remarks open to media. 

The first informal summit took place in Wuhan, China and focus in this year's summit will be to keep the momentum generated from the last year's summit.

Mamallapuram was chosen as the site for the meeting by PM Modi himself and process for the informal summit started in June 2019. India sent its first recce team in June to the town. While history played an important role, the fact that PM Modi is keen to have big summits outside national capital also played the clincher. 

Since it is an informal summit, no joint statement is expected but both sides will issue separate statements in a coordinated manner.