Chinese President Xi Jinping is heading to New Delhi on September 12 and 13 for the 18th BRICS Summit—his first visit to India in seven years. Beijing confirmed the trip on Thursday. There’s a lot riding on this, since India and China have spent years trying to patch up their relationship after a long stretch of border tensions. Trade issues, investment restrictions, and the bigger question of how to smooth things over will be front and center.
Details about the visit
Xi’s making the trip at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation, and the summit will stretch over two days in New Delhi. Reuters says Xi’s delegation will be huge—about 400 officials, more than twice as large as his last visit in 2019. Clearly, Beijing wants to show just how much importance it gives to this meeting. According to the Chinese foreign ministry, they’re all in on BRICS, and they’re backing India as host.
Spotlight on Modi and Xi’s meeting
One big moment everyone’s watching for: a face-to-face between Modi and Xi. This would be their first formal meeting on Indian soil since their informal Mamallapuram summit in 2019. We’re still waiting for an official confirmation, but most reports say it’s on. Odds are, the two leaders plan to use the BRICS Summit to review where things stand between their countries and try to lay out a roadmap for the future.
Their conversation will go deep into the overall relationship, including where things stand along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Both countries have been pushing new ways to talk things out at the border—military hotlines, more meetings between commanders in tricky sectors, and even cooperation on river data. There’s a sense that both sides want to avoid any repeat of past flare-ups.
Economics: The other big issue
Fixing economic ties is a huge priority. Both sides have been holding senior-level talks on trade and investment, after so many links got cut following the Galwan clashes in 2020. Xi’s bringing Commerce Minister Wang Wentao along, who’ll sit down with his Indian counterpart, Piyush Goyal, to go over the messy details of trade. India’s expected to push for more access to the Chinese market and fewer export curbs from Beijing, while China’s likely to ask India to ease up on investment hurdles and make approvals simpler for Chinese firms. Still, there’s plenty of caution—both Indian and Chinese businesses keep running into regulatory hiccups and trust issues.
Updates from the border
Recent border talks led by NSA Ajit Doval for India and Foreign Minister Wang Yi for China ended with eight points of agreement, including plans for early progress where the boundary is less contested. An expert group will start working on these areas, and another team will look at better management along the whole border.
The Modi-Xi sit-down is expected to give these discussions a political push and encourage faster progress, even as the broader boundary question lingers.
What’s on the BRICS menu?
Beyond the India-China relationship, the BRICS Summit itself will dig into things like supply chain resilience, cross-border payments using national currencies, support for small businesses, digital trade, and new tech, including AI. Having Xi join the other BRICS leaders in New Delhi shows how these forums double as a stage for difficult bilateral talks.
For India, hosting Xi after such a long gap is a big deal—and it’s a test. Can they move beyond cautious steps, especially when it comes to the border, business, and how people from both countries relate? The world will be watching to see if this visit leads to real, steady progress.
