For India and China, the task at the BRICS summit was to contain old disputes while finding room for practical cooperation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met on Saturday in New Delhi, on the sidelines of the two-day BRICS 2026 summit, with the boundary question, trade imbalances and supply chains on their agenda.
The meeting, held on September 12, 2026, was Xi’s first trip to India in seven years. It came six years after a deadly military clash along the countries’ disputed border, a reminder of the security strain that has continued to shape the relationship.
India’s foreign ministry said “the two leaders expressed commitment to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question”. Modi “underlined the need for both sides to observe existing agreements and understandings on border related issues”.
India and China share a roughly 3,500km (2,175 mile) high-altitude border. The territorial dispute in the Tibet region remains unresolved, and the meeting produced no stated outcome, mechanism or timetable for settling it.
Economic relations were also a central part of the discussions. The two leaders said each side’s concerns should be addressed, including structural trade imbalance, supply chain issues and the facilitation of meaningful and predictable market access.
Xi called for Beijing to strengthen financial cooperation with India. He said: “Although our two countries are different in many respects, they are fully capable of complementing each other’s strengths, supporting one another, achieving mutual success and advancing together”. Details of any proposed financial arrangements were not made public.
Xi arrived in New Delhi on Saturday with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Cai Qi, a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official. His visit drew protest on Friday from dozens of Tibetans living in exile in New Delhi, including their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
The bilateral meeting took place as global conflicts were set to dominate the wider BRICS gathering. The summit expressed “deep concern” over hostilities in the Middle East, while its joint declaration urged “maximum restraint” in Middle East.
Xi said the Iran war was not in the bloc’s interest. The summit was also overshadowed by the ongoing Ukraine war, according to the summit context.
The New Delhi meeting placed two large questions alongside one another: whether India and China can manage a long-running border dispute, and whether they can reduce economic frictions sufficiently to expand cooperation. Both leaders set out areas for engagement, while the core territorial issue and the practical terms of trade and financial cooperation remained unsettled.
Comments (0)