Xiamen: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold their first substantive bilateral meeting tomorrow after the Doklam standoff, which had put India-China ties under strain.

According to external affairs ministry officials, Modi will meet Xi at 12.30pm (10am IST), his last official engagement before flying off to Myanmar on a bilateral visit.

Modi had arrived in Xiamen and attended the BRICS Summit on Monday.

During the planned bilateral meeting, which is taking place amid efforts by India and China to leave the bitterness caused by the 73- day Doklam standoff, people close to the developments said Modi and Xi are expected to discuss ways to create confidence building measures. The people, however, refused to divulge details about the issues to be discussed. The sense is that both countries want to “move on" after the standoff.

The Chinese and the Indian troops were engaged in a standoff since 16 June after the Indian Army stopped the construction of a road by the Chinese Army in the Doklam plateau. On 28 August, India’s external affairs ministry announced that New Delhi and Beijing have decided on “expeditious disengagement" of their border troops in the disputed Doklam area.

Asked if there was any link between the BRICS declaration, which for the first time named Pakistan-based terror groups for their violent activities and resolution of the Doklam standoff, Secretary (East) in the MEA Preeti Saran answered in the negative, saying BRICS is a multilateral forum where outcomes are based on consensus. “It cannot be linked," she added.

Earlier, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told the media in Beijing that “details of the meeting we will release in due course." Apart from Xi, Modi will also hold a bilateral meeting with the President of Egypt, which is among the five counties—Mexico, Guinea, Thailand and Tajikistan—invited by China as part of ‘BRICS Plus’ outreach exercise. PTI

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