The 18th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit over the weekend will open a new page for China-India relations as the two countries agree to move bilateral ties forward, a Chinese analyst said Sunday. 

Photo: Xinhua

As he greeted leaders to the SCO summit on Sunday in the coastal city of Qingdao, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a special welcome to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain for participating in the summit for the first time.

The summit is the first after a membership expansion. India and Pakistan were accepted as full members of the SCO in 2017 during a summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.

"This is a sign that China and India will use the good momentum to promote bilateral relations in a comprehensive way," Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of International Relations, told the Global Times on Sunday. 

Xi and Modi held a meeting on Saturday in Qingdao and agreed to take their April meeting in Wuhan as a new starting point to promote bilateral relations, the Xinhua News Agency reported. 

China is willing to work with India to take the Wuhan meeting as a new starting point to continuously enhance political mutual trust and engage in mutually beneficial cooperation, so as to push forward China-India relations in a better, faster and steadier manner, Xi said. 

Describing the informal meeting with Xi in Wuhan as "very successful and important," Modi said Saturday that it has further reinforced his confidence in India-China relations, and will certainly be a milestone in the history of the bilateral ties. 

India-China cooperation is of great significance to world peace and prosperity, and India is ready to advance the bilateral relations on the basis of the Wuhan meeting, Modi said. 

In his speech at the 17th Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD), a multilateral platform on Asia-Pacific defense and security last week, Modi stressed that India does not consider the Indo-Pacific region an exclusive club, and that India's vision for the Indo-Pacific region is a positive one, CNBC reported. 

"Modi's remarks run counter to the US' offer to be used as a pawn to contain China, and the Indo-Pacific strategy faces difficulties without India's role," Hu said.

China and India eye peaceful cooperation instead of a zero-sum game, and the SCO summit is a chance for the two to expand consensus and manage disagreements, Hu added.