Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement that he plans to visit China for an ‘informal summit’ with President Xi Jinping is part of a ‘reset’ strategy vis-à-vis Beijing that New Delhi has embarked upon in the last few months.

It’s the culmination of a series of outreach measures and comes on the heels of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s attendance at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) defence ministers’ meeting and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s presenceat the corresponding foreign ministers’ event in China this week. Modi’s visit will put the official stamp on the ‘reset’ and is likely to have significant implications for the region.

Notably, its speculated that Modi’s upcoming visit is the result of an invitation from Beijing and is even more interesting because he is already scheduled to attend the SCO summit in China in June this year. It appears that the Indian government’s overtures to China in recent months, including visits by the Indian foreign secretary and national security advisor, and the withdrawal of its support to a Tibetan event held in New Delhi, have borne fruit and are being reciprocated by the PRC.

Please click here to read the full “Has India blinked?” article at The Strategist, written by Griffith Asia Institute researcher, Aakriti Bachhawat.