Swaraj also called on President Xi, as part of a delegation of foreign ministers of the SCO.

China on Monday asserted that Beijing and New Delhi are vanguards of a new wave of globalisation and the guardians of a multi-polar world.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in response to questions regarding the upcoming informal summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Wuhan that India and China are “important forces in promoting the multipolar world and economic liberalisation, and as well as ensuring regional and world’s peace, stability and development”.

Chinese Foreign Minister and state councillor Wang Yi and visiting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday jointly announced that a two-day summit between President Xi and Prime Minister Modi will be held in Wuhan from April 27.

On Monday, Ms. Swaraj separately met Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan. Mr. Wang is President Xi’s right hand man, and plays a key role in imparting strategic direction to Chinese foreign policy, including Beijing’s relations with the United States and Japan.

Local media reports said that Mr. Wang steers the newly formed Central Foreign Affairs Commission, with politburo member Yang Jiechi as its director.

Later, Ms. Swaraj also called on President Xi, as part of a delegation of foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Mr. Lu, in his briefing, highlighted the growing protectionism in the world, which included a brewing trade war with the United States, as the new basis for bonding China and India—the world’s largest emerging economies.

“The world is now faced with rampant unilateralism as well as the rising protectionism in the process of globalisation. All these trends have been closely followed and debated. So against such backdrop China and India have a lot to discuss.”

The Chinese position aligns with the stance adopted by India in supporting inclusive gloabalisation and rejecting protectionism. Earlier this month, NITI Ayog Vice- Chairman, Rajiv Kumar said in Beijing during his opening remarks at the China-India Strategic Economic Dialogue that the “cyclical and synchronised recovery in the world economy” had been “marred and disrupted by some unseemly protectionist noises that are coming out of the Atlantic basin in North America and Europe”.

Referring to major geo-economics shifts which China and India could sharpen, Mr. Kumar said Asia and the emerging economies could become the new drivers of global growth.

Mr. Lu in his remarks pointed out that “as newly emerging markets as well as developing countries with big populations … we believed the two countries (India and China) will continue to uphold the globalisation so that it is more inclusive”.

In the light of a “lot of shared interests, concerns and positions,” the two leaders in their meeting in Wuhan will take of long view of their ties, and tailor China-India relations to impact the evolving international situation.

Mr. Lu highlighted the two leaders “will discuss the changes that have taken place, and which are unprecedented in the past 100 years, and exchange views on the strategic, over-arching and long-term issues concerning our bilateral relations”.

Underscoring the global impact of the unprecedented summit, the spokesperson stressed that President Xi and Prime Minister Modi “will discuss the latest trends of the world so (that) there is a stable global development”.