India on Saturday emphasised that peace and tranquillity within the border areas stay the “important foundation” for creating ties with China, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping welcomed “regular progress” in bilateral relations throughout a gathering on the margins of the Brics Summit in New Delhi.
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Xi travelled to India for the primary time in seven years to attend the Brics Summit, organising the assembly with Modi to take ahead the normalisation of bilateral ties amid lingering tensions on the border. The 2 leaders final met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit within the Chinese language metropolis of Tianjin a 12 months in the past.
‘Peace and tranquillity important for ties’
Modi emphasised that peace and tranquillity within the border areas “stays a vital foundation for the continued improvement of bilateral relations”, the exterior affairs ministry mentioned in a readout. He additionally underlined that each side ought to “observe present agreements and understandings on border-related points”.
The 2 leaders “expressed dedication to a good, affordable, and mutually acceptable decision of the boundary query continuing from the political perspective of their total bilateral relations and the long-term pursuits of the 2 peoples”, the ministry mentioned.
Modi’s feedback reiterated India’s acknowledged place that the state of the border will decide the general course of bilateral ties. The Chinese language aspect, nevertheless, has argued that the 2 sides ought to place the border dispute in an “applicable place” whereas taking ahead relations in different spheres reminiscent of commerce and funding.
Assembly amid border tensions
The 2 leaders met in opposition to the backdrop of recent tensions between Indian and Chinese language troops within the distant Taksing area of Arunachal Pradesh, with reviews of face-offs throughout July and August. The 2 sides reached an understanding in October 2024 on disengaging troops at “friction factors” within the Ladakh sector of the Line of Precise Management (LAC), ending a standoff that lasted greater than 4 years and took ties to a six-decade low.
Modi and Xi welcomed the “regular progress” in India-China relations since their final assembly at Tianjin in August 2025, and reaffirmed that each international locations ought to “take a strategic and long-term perspective of their ties”, the readout mentioned.
“Variations shouldn’t turn out to be disputes. Prime Minister [Modi] highlighted that each side should be guided by three mutuals – mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual curiosity,” the readout mentioned.
Modi and Xi additionally famous progress in people-to-people ties and underscored the necessity to promote cultural exchanges, enterprise linkages, and better mobility between the 2 international locations, the assertion added.
Within the context of financial and commerce relations, they underlined the necessity to “handle one another’s considerations, together with structural commerce imbalance and provide chain points, and facilitation of significant and predictable market entry”, it mentioned.
India continues to have a spread of considerations within the financial sphere, together with China’s visa curbs for Indian businesspeople, export restrictions on crucial equipment and commodities reminiscent of 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 the commerce deficit has risen from $57 billion to nearly $100 billion in the identical interval.
The 2 leaders additional agreed that each side “should proceed to increase frequent floor on regional and international points, and in addressing challenges”, the readout mentioned with out going into particulars.
Modi appreciated China’s assist for India’s Brics presidency and its contributions in direction of the success of the Brics Summit.
Xi, who final visited the Indian capital in 2014, was acquired on the airport by minister of state for commerce Jitin Prasada. 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 the face-off in Ladakh. Xi final travelled to India in 2019 for a casual summit with Modi, months earlier than the standoff started.
The talks between Xi and Modi additionally provided a possibility to take inventory of a number of rounds of dialogue between the Particular Representatives on the border problem, 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 in Arunachal Pradesh on September 6 and seven.
The difficulty of a doable “early and substantial harvest” of boundary delimitation and border administration has figured in these discussions, although the 2 sides haven’t launched any particulars up to now.