Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday signalled a significant consolidation of India-China relations, agreeing to take bilateral ties on a strategic and long-term trajectory and making clear that differences between the two countries should not be allowed to become disputes. The evening bilateral between Modi and Xi took place after the Prime Minister announced the New Delhi Declaration earlier in the afternoon at the BRICS Summit. The sequencing of the two events adds significance to the bilateral engagement, as the declaration provided the broader multilateral backdrop for the discussions between the two leaders. The Modi-Xi meeting was among the most closely watched bilateral engagements of the BRICS Summit, particularly in Western capitals, including Washington, where there is considerable interest in assessing the pace and extent of the improvement in India-China relations and whether the two Asian powers are moving towards a more cordial and stable relationship. The two leaders welcomed the steady progress in India China bilateral relations since their last meeting in Tianjin in August 2025 and reaffirmed that both countries should take a strategic and long-term perspective of their ties. PM Modi highlighted that the relationship should be guided by three principles: mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interest. The two leaders also agreed that differences should not become disputes. The approach assumes significance against the backdrop of repeated disruptions to the global order.
The Covid-19 pandemic was followed by the Russia-Ukraine war and the ongoing US-Iran conflict, with successive crises affecting global economic activity, supply chains, energy security and the wider strategic environment. In such an environment, the Modi-Xi engagement points towards an understanding that sustained friction between the world’s two major Asian countries would add another layer of instability, while greater predictability in their relationship could serve the interests of both. The border remains a critical element of this approach. The Indian PM emphasised that peace and tranquillity in the border areas remain an essential basis for the continued development of bilateral relations and underlined the need for both sides to observe existing agreements and understandings on borderrelated issues. The two leaders also expressed commitment to a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question, proceeding from the political perspective of their overall bilateral relations and the long-term interests of the two peoples. The formulation indicates that the boundary question is being viewed within the larger political relationship rather than being allowed to define the entire India-China engagement. The economic relationship forms another important pillar of the understanding.
The two leaders underlined the need to address each other’s concerns, including structural trade imbalance and supply-chain issues, and stressed the facilitation of meaningful and predictable market access. They also took note of progress in people-to-people ties and underscored the need to further promote cultural exchanges, business linkages and greater mobility between the two countries. The two leaders agreed that India and China must continue to expand common ground on regional and global issues and in addressing challenges. The sequence of the New Delhi Declaration followed by the ModiXi bilateral also places the bilateral engagement within a wider multilateral framework. The declaration calls for greater cooperation among BRICS countries and emphasises dialogue, consultation and diplomacy in dealing with international disputes. It also stresses the importance of an open, equitable, transparent, fair, inclusive and predictable rulesbased multilateral trading system. For India and China, the immediate objective emerging from the meeting is therefore not to eliminate differences but to ensure that those differences do not derail the broader relationship. The three principles articulated by Modi, mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interest, provide the political framework for that approach.
The meeting also carries significance because of the trajectory of India-China relations since the 2020 border crisis. The language of the latest engagement suggests that both leaderships are now focused on consolidating the improvement in ties and creating conditions for a more stable and predictable relationship. For the United States and other Western countries closely observing the India-China equation, the key question emerging from the meeting will be how rapidly and how deeply this stabilisation develops into a more cordial relationship between New Delhi and Beijing. That does not mean that India and China have set aside their differences. Rather, the message from Modi and Xi is that the two countries see greater value in managing those differences while expanding cooperation in areas of mutual interest. Modi also appreciated China’s support for India’s BRICS chairship and its contributions towards the success of the BRICS Summit-2026. The central message from the evening meeting is that after years of tension, particularly following 2020, the two countries are seeking to ensure that their differences do not prevent them from building a relationship based on mutual benefit and strategic stability.
