E-Paper
Xi to visit India after 7 years, hold meet with Modi on Day 1 of BRICS Summit
Xi Jinping's attendance at the 2026 BRICS Summit in Delhi will be his first visit to India in nearly seven years.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to hold bilateral meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday and China’s President Xi Jinping on Saturday on the margins of the BRICS Summit, people familiar with the matter said.
Modi met both Putin and Pezeshkian on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Kyrgyzstan on August 31, while Xi is set to visit India for the first time in seven years. Xi last travelled to India in 2019, months before the start of a military face-off in Ladakh that lasted more than four years and took bilateral ties to a six-decade low.
These bilateral meetings will be opportunities for the leaders to take stock of bilateral relations and discuss a range of global issues, especially the war in Ukraine and the West Asia conflict, the people said.
Deep Dive
The bilateral meeting between Modi and Xi, to be held on the main day of the Brics Summit, is the one that will be most closely watched as it will provide a chance for the two leaders to assess the ongoing process to normalise India-China relations and to address the dragging border dispute.
Modi and Xi had unveiled a range of measures to normalise ties and build confidence when they met in October 2024, soon after India and China reached an understanding on ending the standoff in Ladakh. Since then, the two sides have resumed direct flights, revived the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and started border trade through three designated routes.
The Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs and the Special Representatives on the border issue have met several times and discussed matters such as a possible “early harvest” in boundary demarcation. The first meeting of senior military commanders of both sides in the Arunachal Pradesh sector will be held this week to discuss the maintenance of peace and tranquillity on the border.
However, differences continue to persist on a range of issues, including China’s restrictions on visas for Indian businessmen, Beijing’s curbs on exports of key technologies and equipment and an insistence that the border issue should be separated from the development of the overall relationship. The Indian side has repeatedly said the state of the border will determine the course of bilateral ties.
Xi is also expected to travel to India weeks after reports of fresh tensions between Indian and Chinese troops at Taksing in Arunachal Pradesh. The upcoming meeting, the people said, will be an opportunity to take up such issues.
