Xi, Modi advance ties during Delhi BRICS meeting
The two leaders met on Saturday on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in New Delhi and welcomed what the Prime Minister’s Office described as steady progress in ties since their meeting in Tianjin in August 2025. They agreed that relations should be approached from a strategic and long-term perspective and that differences should not be allowed to become disputes.
Modi said peace and tranquillity in border areas remained an essential basis for further development of the relationship. He called for both sides to observe existing agreements and understandings on frontier issues and said engagement should be guided by “mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interest”.
Both leaders committed themselves to seeking a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement of the boundary question, while expanding cooperation in areas where their interests converge. They also backed stronger cultural exchanges, business links and mobility, alongside efforts to resolve economic frictions.
Trade featured prominently in the discussions. The two sides agreed on the need to address concerns over the structural trade imbalance, supply-chain issues and access to each other’s markets. Bilateral trade reached a record $155.6 billion in 2025, while India’s imports from China were about $132 billion, leaving a large deficit that New Delhi has repeatedly sought to narrow.
The meeting marked Xi’s first trip to India since 2019, when he travelled to Tamil Nadu for an informal summit with Modi. Relations deteriorated sharply after the 2020 military confrontation in eastern Ladakh, including the Galwan Valley clash that killed 20 soldiers from India and four from China.
A disengagement agreement reached in October 2024 helped end key points of the military standoff and opened the way for higher-level political contacts. Modi and Xi then held a substantive bilateral meeting during the BRICS summit in Kazan that month, followed by another meeting in Tianjin in August 2025.
Diplomatic and military mechanisms have since been revived. At the 25th round of Special Representatives’ talks in Beijing on August 25, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and China’s Wang Yi agreed on eight measures covering border management, military communication, boundary negotiations, trade routes, pilgrimage arrangements and cooperation on trans-border rivers.
Among those steps were two additional channels for military hotlines in the eastern and middle sectors and two additional meeting points for senior commanders. The two sides also agreed to continue work towards a framework for settling the boundary dispute and to use existing diplomatic and military channels to deal promptly with incidents along the Line of Actual Control.
Practical links have also begun returning. Direct passenger flights have resumed, business visa processing has improved and the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage has restarted, while three traditional border trading points have reopened. Those measures have not removed the deeper trust deficit, but they have restored channels that were largely frozen after 2020. Officials on both sides have indicated that further easing will depend on predictable border management and progress on commercial concerns over the coming months.
Despite the thaw, major differences remain. Large troop deployments continue along sections of the Himalayan frontier, and the boundary itself has not been settled. Economic engagement is also constrained by investment screening, regulatory barriers, visa delays and security concerns affecting sectors considered sensitive by either government.
Xi’s visit nevertheless gave both governments an opportunity to demonstrate that political contacts are becoming more regular after years of strained relations. Beijing has repeatedly said the two countries should view each other as partners rather than rivals, while New Delhi has maintained that normal relations require durable peace at the border.
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