Xi Jinping Arrives In Delhi For BRICS, Set For First Modi Meeting Since Galwan

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in New Delhi on Saturday to attend the 18th BRICS Summit, marking his first visit to India in nearly seven years and setting up what would be his first direct bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi since the deadly 2020 Galwan Valley clash along the two countries' disputed Himalayan border.

A Long-Awaited Bilateral

While Modi and Xi have crossed paths at multilateral gatherings such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in the years since Galwan, the two leaders have not held a dedicated bilateral meeting since the June 2020 confrontation, which left 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops dead and pushed relations between the two Asian giants to their lowest point in decades. Xi's arrival in Delhi, and the bilateral meeting expected later Saturday on the sidelines of the summit, is being closely watched as a potential marker of how far the relationship has travelled since then.

Ahead of the meeting, China's foreign ministry struck a conciliatory tone, saying the two countries should "handle differences properly" and view the relationship "from a strategic and long-term perspective." Beijing added that it intends to work with India to "step up communication, enhance cooperation, [and] properly handle differences" in line with the strategic guidance the two leaders have set out.

What's On The Table

Discussions between the two leaders are expected to cover the disputed border, trade and investment flows, and connectivity projects, according to people familiar with the agenda. The two countries have already made some incremental progress through diplomatic channels: the 25th round of talks between the two nations' Special Representatives on the boundary question, held in Beijing in late August, produced an eight-point consensus and an agreement to push forward on what negotiators described as an "early and substantial harvest" on boundary delimitation and border management, though the practical details of any such harvest remain to be worked out.

Even so, expectations for a dramatic breakthrough remain measured. Trade imbalances, lingering distrust over troop deployments along the Line of Actual Control, and the broader question of how India's warming ties with the West interact with its relationship with China are all likely to complicate any push for a fuller reset, even as both sides signal a desire to stabilise ties.

Why It Matters

The Modi-Xi meeting is unfolding against the backdrop of a BRICS Summit that India is chairing for the fourth time, at a moment when the grouping's expanded membership spans economies with sharply differing interests and, in some cases, active geopolitical rivalries with one another. A functional working relationship between India and China, the bloc's two largest economies, is widely seen as important to BRICS being able to present a coherent voice on the global stage. For New Delhi, hosting Xi for his first visit since 2019 also carries domestic significance, offering a chance to demonstrate that India can engage assertively with Beijing on its own terms while continuing to expand ties with Washington and other Western capitals.

No formal readout of the bilateral meeting had been released at the time of writing, with both sides expected to issue statements once the talks conclude later Saturday.

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