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PM Modi, Xi Jinping to meet in India after 7 years: Arunachal border, mega dam, bilateral ties on agenda
While both India and China have taken several steps towards ties normalisation in recent years, differences remain on a range of issues.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Saturday, seven years after his last visit to India, with the talks expected to focus on consolidating efforts to normalise bilateral ties and long-running boundary dispute.
Xi will be in the national capital to attend the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit at Bharat Mandapam. His visit was confirmed by the Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday, which said he was “travelling to India at PM Modi’s invitation”.
The proposed bilateral meeting will be the third consecutive year in which Modi and Xi meet face-to-face, after their previous interactions on the sidelines of multilateral summits in Kazan, Russia, and Tianjin, China.
Deep Dive
Xi last visited India in October 2019, when he travelled to Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu for the second India-China informal summit. The meeting came less than six months before Indian and Chinese troops became embroiled in a military standoff in Ladakh that lasted more than four years and pushed bilateral ties to their lowest point in decades.
What’s on agenda
The meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS summit will give the two leaders an opportunity to assess progress towards normalising ties and discuss the next steps on the border issue, as reported by HT earlier.
While the two sides have taken several steps towards normalisation in the past years, differences remain on a range of issues. These are likely to figure in the highly anticipated meeting between Modi and Xi today.
- India has concerns over China’s restrictions on visas for Indian businesspeople and curbs on the export of key technologies and equipment. Beijing, meanwhile, has maintained that the border issue should be kept separate from the broader development of bilateral relations.
- India has repeatedly maintained that the state of the border will determine the overall course of ties.
- Xi’s visit also comes amid reports of fresh tensions between Indian and Chinese troops at Taksing in Arunachal Pradesh.
- Another issue of concern for New Delhi is China’s planned $137-billion mega dam on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra river on the Tibetan plateau. India has sought greater transparency and information-sharing on the project, with concerns growing after the recent glacier collapse in Nepal.
China signals focus on ties
While announcing the Chinese premiere's visit, the country's ambassador to India Xu Feihong has also signalled Beijing’s intent to maintain momentum in high-level engagement with New Delhi.
Xu said: "China will work with India to act on the strategic guidance of the two leaders, handle the bilateral relations from a strategic height and long-term perspective, step up communication, enhance cooperation, properly handle differences, and be friends enjoying good-neighborliness and partners helping each other succeed," the envoy wrote on X.
Efforts underway for better ties
India and China announced several measures to rebuild confidence when Modi and Xi met in October 2024, shortly after the two sides reached an understanding to end the Ladakh standoff. Since then, direct flights between the two countries have resumed, the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra has been revived and border trade has restarted through three designated routes.
The two sides have also stepped up diplomatic engagement on the boundary question.
The Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on border affairs and the Special Representatives mechanism have held several rounds of discussions over the past two years. India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi have also discussed issues including boundary demarcation, recently.
The 25th round of Special Representatives’ talks, held in Beijing on August 25, resulted in eight outcomes, including an agreement to advance discussions for "an early and substantial harvest" on boundary delimitation and border management.
Senior military commanders from India and China also met earlier this week in the Arunachal Pradesh sector to discuss maintaining peace and tranquillity along the border.
BRICS India 2026
Xi’s visit comes as India hosts the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit at Bharat Mandapam on September 12 and 13.
The expanded grouping is expected to discuss issues including trade and financial cooperation, technology and artificial intelligence, energy security, climate action and reforms of global institutions.
India’s BRICS presidency is being conducted under the theme "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability", with New Delhi seeking to place Global South priorities at the centre of the grouping’s agenda.
