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.
Because of a face-off between troops of the two sides in Ladakh, 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. Xi, who last visited the Indian capital in 2014, was received at the airport by minister of state for commerce Jitin Prasada. 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.
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. 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).
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.
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.
