Chinese language President Xi Jinping travelled to India on Saturday for the primary time in seven years to attend the Brics Summit, setting the stage for bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to advance the normalisation of ties amid lingering tensions on the border.
Xi, who final visited the Indian capital in 2014, was obtained on the airport by minister of state for commerce Jitin Prasada. Exterior affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated India seems ahead to constructive discussions with China as Brics advances cooperation and contributes to a extra balanced, consultant and multipolar world.
The leaders of India and China haven’t made any bilateral visits since 2020, when relations plummeted to their lowest level for the reason that 1962 border struggle due to a face-off between troops of the 2 sides in Ladakh. Xi final travelled to India in 2019 for an off-the-cuff summit with Modi, months earlier than the standoff started and continued for greater than 4 years.
Xi and Modi are set to fulfill on Saturday night to evaluate the progress made by the 2 sides in addressing the dragging border dispute and normalising bilateral ties since they reached an understanding in October 2024 on disengagement of troops in any respect “friction factors” in Ladakh sector of the Line of Precise Management (LAC).
Whilst the method of de-escalation and withdrawal of troops to peacetime areas in Ladakh sector stays incomplete, contemporary tensions emerged within the Arunachal Pradesh sector after face-offs between troops throughout July and August.
The talks between Xi and Modi will likely be a chance to take inventory of a number of rounds of dialogue between the Particular Representatives on the border difficulty, the Working Mechanism for Session and Coordination (WMCC) and senior army commanders. India and China held the primary spherical of talks between army commanders within the japanese sector on September 6 and seven.
Individuals accustomed to the matter stated the Indian aspect can be anticipated to lift a spread of issues, together with China’s visa curbs for Indian businesspeople, export restrictions on essential equipment and commodities similar to fertilisers, and the yawning imbalance in two-way commerce. Since Xi’s final go to, India-China commerce has grown from about $93 billion in 2019 to $127 billion in 2025, whereas India’s commerce deficit has risen from $57 billion to nearly $100 billion in the identical interval.
The 2 sides, nonetheless, have made progress in resuming direct flights, reviving the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and restarting border commerce by way of three designated factors.