Xi Jinping to Visit India for BRICS Summit, First Trip in Nearly Seven Years

China has confirmed that President Xi Jinping will travel to New Delhi on September 12 for the BRICS Summit, marking his first visit to India in almost seven years. His last trip was in October 2019, when he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for an informal summit at Mamallapuram near Chennai. The two leaders are expected to hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the summit.

Mr. Xi will be accompanied by a large delegation that includes Politburo member and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, along with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao. Mr. Wang is likely to hold separate talks with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, giving both sides a chance to review a trade relationship that is expanding even as it remains fraught. India is expected to press for an easing of export controls, while China is likely to seek further relaxation of investment restrictions.

Significance Beyond Outcomes

Officials on both sides view the visit itself as carrying considerable weight for the relationship and for the wider normalisation process. From the Chinese perspective in particular, a presidential trip after a seven-year gap is seen as an important signal to the domestic system about the direction ties are taking after a difficult period.

Writing in the Communist Party-run Global Times on Thursday, India's Ambassador to China, Vikram Doraiswami, described the summit as a valuable opening to deepen cooperation on trade, connectivity, climate action, public health and the digital economy, and to contribute to a more balanced and inclusive global order. He noted that a stable and predictable relationship between the two most populous emerging economies serves not only their combined 2.8 billion people but also peace and prosperity across Asia and beyond, and said calm in the border areas remains an essential foundation for that partnership.

Relations were frozen for four years after tensions that began in April 2020 and culminated in the Galwan Valley clash that June, the worst border violence in years. A meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi on the sidelines of the 2024 BRICS summit in Kazan set both sides on a path of gradual normalisation. The two leaders last met at the SCO Summit in Tianjin, China, in August last year, when they welcomed the positive momentum in ties and reaffirmed that their countries were development partners rather than rivals, and that differences should not become disputes.

'Strategic Risk Management'

In China, the visit is being read as an effort by both sides to keep ties stable rather than as a sign of any major realignment. Hu Shisheng, Director of the South Asia Institute at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, characterised it as strategic risk management rather than strategic realignment. He observed that recent strains in India-U.S. relations may give New Delhi more reason to diversify its strategic options, while a relative stabilisation of China-U.S. ties eases some external pressure on India-China relations. Structural differences have not disappeared, he said, describing the current phase as an attempt to build a more stable form of competitive coexistence — keeping the border peaceful, restoring practical cooperation and expanding coordination through BRICS and the Global South without pretending strategic competition no longer exists.

During talks in Beijing last month, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Mr. Wang both highlighted the positive impact that leadership meetings have had in setting the trajectory of the relationship. The two countries also agreed to advance discussions on an early and substantial harvest of boundary delimitation, according to an eight-point outcome document issued after the 25th round of Special Representatives talks. They further agreed to hold the next meeting of an expert-level mechanism on trans-border rivers later this month to discuss hydrological data sharing and related issues, which have gained added significance after the recent devastating glacial collapse on the Nepal-China border. The Beijing talks also produced agreement on two additional meeting points for Senior Highest Military Commander meetings and two extra border military hotlines in the Eastern and Middle Sectors.

Keeping peace on the Line of Actual Control remains the biggest challenge to normalisation. While the Western Sector has been largely tranquil for the past two years, recent weeks have brought reports of tensions and a stand-off in the Eastern Sector in Arunachal Pradesh, where both sides have overlapping claims. On September 6, the two armies held their first Corps Commander-level meeting in the Eastern Sector, expanding the military dialogue mechanism beyond Ladakh. The meeting took place at the Vacha-Damai Border Personnel Meeting Point in Arunachal Pradesh amid reported tensions in the Taksing area of Upper Subansiri district.

Trade Deficit in Focus

On the economic front, India remains concerned about the widening trade deficit. Two-way trade reached $91.72 billion in the first six months of the year, up 23.6% from a year earlier and on course to surpass the record $155.62 billion recorded in 2025, when China was again India's largest goods trading partner. The deficit stood at $67.1 billion after the first half, also tracking above last year's record $116.12 billion. India's exports to China grew strongly, rising 37.2% to $12.31 billion, though from a small base, with increasing volumes of printed circuit boards among the shipments — goods India previously imported in bulk from China.

Beyond the size of the deficit, the composition of trade is a concern, including large quantities of finished electronics and other equipment, even as India relies heavily on Chinese intermediates for its manufacturing. Earlier this year, Ambassador Doraiswami said it would be easier to accept that trade would not be exactly balanced, provided the exports involved were goods India could add value to, adding that purely consumption goods are harder to defend as a reasonable mechanism for addressing the deficit.