Xi’s first visit in 7 years: India and China look to consolidate peace along LAC

 When Chinese President Xi Jinping flies into New Delhi on Saturday for his first visit to India in seven years, he will hold a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that will allow the two sides to consolidate efforts to normalise ties and address the dragging boundary dispute.

Modi is set to hold several crucial bilateral meetings on the margins of the Brics Summit that will facilitate reviews of ties and discussions on global issues such as the conflicts in West Asia and Ukraine. Besides meeting Xi on Saturday evening, Modi will also hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday, people familiar with the matter said.

China’s foreign ministry officially confirmed Xi’s participation in the Brics Summit only on Thursday afternoon, saying that he will travel to India during September 12-13 at the invitation of Modi.

Modi and Xi have held talks on the margins of multilateral events in recent years, but they last met on Indian soil in October 2019, when the Chinese President travelled to Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu for the second India-China informal summit, a mechanism created for the two leaders to address complex issues in a more unstructured format.

Within six months, however, the two sides were embroiled in a military face-off in Ladakh that lasted more than four years and took bilateral ties to a six-decade low.

Consolidate efforts to normalise ties

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 take forward and consolidate measures to settle the dragging border dispute.

Modi and Xi 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.

Diplomatic rounds

More significantly, the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs and the Special Representatives on the border issue — India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and China’s foreign minister Wang Yi — have met several times over the past two years and discussed measures such as boundary demarcation.

The 25th round of talks between the Special Representatives in Beijing on August 25 yielded eight outcomes, including a move to advance discussions for “an early and substantial harvest” of boundary delimitation and border management.

Senior Indian and Chinese military commanders met earlier this week in the Arunachal Pradesh sector to discuss maintaining peace and tranquillity on the border.

Differences persist

However, differences continue to persist on a range of issues, including China’s restrictions on visas for Indian businesspeople, Beijing’s curbs on exports of key technologies and equipment, and China’s insistence that the border issue should be separated from the development of the overall relationship. India has repeatedly said the state of the border will determine the course of bilateral ties.

Xi is also travelling to India weeks after reports of fresh tensions between Indian and Chinese troops at Taksing in Arunachal Pradesh. Concerns on the Indian side about China’s move to build a $137-billion mega dam on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra river in the ecologically fragile Tibetan plateau have grown following the recent glacier collapse in Nepal. New Delhi has called for greater transparency and information-sharing on the dam project.

Marathon bilaterals

Modi met both Putin and Pezeshkian on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Kyrgyzstan on August 31. Their meetings in New Delhi are expected to focus on bilateral relations and global issues such as the wars in Ukraine and West Asia, the people said. The Indian PM told Putin at their last meeting that “endless war must give way to the end of war” as he again nudged him to end the conflict in Ukraine, and the Indian side is expected to discuss ways to end the conflict, which New Delhi believes has caused immense harm to the Global South.

Prez Masoud Pezeshkian’s first visit

The people said Modi’s meeting with Pezeshkian, who is visiting India for the first time since he became President in July 2024, will focus on the West Asia conflict, especially efforts to ensure the well-being of Indian seafarers and ensure the unimpeded flow of energy and goods, as well as bilateral ties and connectivity initiatives, including India’s participation in Iran’s Chabahar port, which has been under a cloud of uncertainty because of US sanctions.

High-profile attendees

Modi is also expected to hold bilateral meetings with other leaders attending the summit. Among other Brics leaders attending the summit are South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, while Brazil will be represented by foreign minister Mauro Vieira and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Khalid bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Among key leaders of Brics partner countries attending the summit are Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Thai deputy prime minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow and Vietnam Prime Minister Le Minh Hung. Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr will attend as the representative of Asean while Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will represent the Eurasian Economic Union.

Among representatives of international organisations attending the summit are World Health Organisation chief Tedros Ghebreyesus, New Development Bank President Dilma Rousseff and World Trade Organisation head Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.