Xi Jinping in India after 7 years, set to meet PM Modi today

Chinese President Xi Jinping travelled to India on Saturday for the first 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 last visited the Indian capital in 2014, was received at the airport by minister of state for commerce Jitin Prasada. External affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India looks forward to constructive discussions with China as Brics advances cooperation and contributes to a more balanced, representative and multipolar world.

The leaders of India and China have not made any bilateral visits since 2020, when relations plummeted to their lowest point since the 1962 border war because of a face-off between troops of the two sides in Ladakh. Xi last travelled to India in 2019 for an informal summit with Modi, months before the standoff began and continued for more than four years.

Xi and Modi are set to meet on Saturday evening to assess the progress made by the two sides in addressing the dragging border dispute and normalising bilateral ties since they reached an understanding in October 2024 on disengagement of troops at all “friction points” in Ladakh sector of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Even as the process of de-escalation and withdrawal of troops to peacetime locations in Ladakh sector remains incomplete, fresh tensions emerged in the Arunachal Pradesh sector after face-offs between troops during July and August.

The talks between Xi and Modi will be an opportunity to take stock of several rounds of dialogue between the Special Representatives on the border issue, the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) and senior military commanders. India and China held the first round of talks between military commanders in the eastern sector on September 6 and 7.

People familiar with the matter said the Indian side is also expected to raise a range of concerns, including China’s visa curbs for Indian businesspeople, export restrictions on critical machinery and commodities such as fertilisers, and the yawning imbalance in two-way trade. Since Xi’s last visit, India-China trade has grown from about $93 billion in 2019 to $127 billion in 2025, while India’s trade deficit has risen from $57 billion to almost $100 billion in the same period.

The two sides, however, have made progress in resuming direct flights, reviving the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and restarting border trade through three designated points.