Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping meet in New Delhi over the 2020 border clash
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on Saturday on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in New Delhi. The talks come on the first visit to India by Xi Jinping since 2019. ABC News reported the call by Xi Jinping for high-quality cooperation and thanks from Narendra Modi for help hosting the summit. The 2020 clash on the Ladakh frontier killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese personnel, and heavy deployments remain along the unresolved 3,500 km border.
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Saturday talks as Xi Jinping makes his first visit since 2019
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on Saturday on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in New Delhi. ABC News reported the face-to-face talks against the tension left by the 2020 border clash. Al Jazeera reported that Xi Jinping had left Beijing for the eighteenth BRICS summit with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the senior party official Cai Qi, and that the visit is his first to India since 2019. Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian had arrived a day earlier, according to the same report.[1], [2]
Along the 3,500 km line the 2020 Ladakh clash still hangs over the talks
A clash on the Ladakh frontier in 2020 killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese personnel, and the two sides have kept tens of thousands of troops facing each other since, ABC News reported. Al Jazeera said the agenda of the summit included the state of the 3,500 km border, and that relations have improved gradually since 2020 even though territorial disputes and military deployments along the line remain unresolved. Xi Jinping said China approaches relations with India from a strategic and long-term perspective and called on the two countries to support one another, according to ABC News.[1], [2]
In the talks Xi Jinping calls for high-quality cooperation
Xi Jinping also called for high-quality cooperation between the two countries, saying it should promote a more multipolar world. Narendra Modi thanked him for China's cooperation in hosting the summit; China takes over as host next year. ABC News noted that the two leaders last met during Narendra Modi's 2025 trip to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, and that China runs a large trade surplus with India. Al Jazeera quoted the China-India specialist Pradeep Taneja as saying the two sides are looking for an early and substantial harvest on the border question.[1], [2]
