As Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in New Delhi early Saturday to attend the 18th BRICS Summit, marking his first visit to India in nearly seven years, a closely watched bilateral meeting has been scheduled with Prime Minister Narendra Modi later in the day.
The high-profile visit of the Chinese President comes as the two Asian powers continue a cautious effort to stabilise ties strained by years of military tension along the disputed Himalayan border.
#WATCH | Delhi: Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Delhi to participate in the BRICS Summit 2026.
Union MoS Jitin Prasada received him at the airport. pic.twitter.com/fk77Bq5nmy
— ANI (@ANI) September 12, 2026
When Did Xi Jinping Arrive In Delhi To Attend Key BRICS Summit?
Xi left Beijing on Saturday morning at Modi’s invitation, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, with his delegation including Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
His arrival marks his first trip to India since October 2019, when he travelled to Chennai for an informal summit with Modi, and comes as India hosts the two-day BRICS gathering at Bharat Mandapam on September 12 and 13.
When Will Modi And Xi Meet Today?
The two leaders are scheduled to hold their bilateral meeting at 5:45 pm on Saturday at Bharat Mandapam, according to India’s official summit schedule, on the sidelines of the wider leaders’ summit.
The meeting follows separate talks Modi held on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin at 3:30 pm and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian at 6:15 pm, alongside a meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres at 6:45 pm, as New Delhi hosted a packed schedule of bilateral diplomacy ahead of the formal summit sessions.
Who Is Accompanying The Chinese President To Delhi?
Xi’s delegation to New Delhi is built around two of the most senior figures in China’s political hierarchy, underscoring the weight Beijing has attached to this weekend’s visit. Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, ranks among the innermost circle of Chinese leadership and is widely regarded as one of Xi’s closest confidants, responsible for managing the day-to-day machinery of the party’s central apparatus.
His presence signals that the trip is being treated in Beijing not merely as a diplomatic courtesy but as a carefully managed political undertaking, with someone who oversees Xi’s own office accompanying him in person.
Also travelling with Xi is Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the public face of China’s foreign policy for more than a decade.
Wang’s inclusion places the country’s chief diplomat directly at the table for talks that are expected to touch on some of the most sensitive issues in the bilateral relationship, from the unresolved border dispute along the Line of Actual Control to trade imbalances that have long frustrated New Delhi.
According to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, the delegation reflects Beijing’s stated approach heading into the visit, one it has described as being ready to strengthen communication, deepen cooperation and appropriately manage differences with India, language that suggests Chinese officials are seeking to project continuity and control over a relationship still shadowed by the 2020 military standoff in Ladakh.
What Is On The Modi-Xi Agenda?
Officials on both sides say the talks are expected to focus on management of the Line of Actual Control, the disputed border where a substantial military presence from both countries remains stationed along roughly 3,500 kilometres of frontier despite recent disengagement efforts. Trade and economic issues are also expected to feature prominently, with India having repeatedly raised concerns over an unequal trade balance and market restrictions facing Indian businesses and investors in China.
Ahead of Xi’s arrival, China’s foreign ministry said Beijing was ready to strengthen communication, deepen cooperation and appropriately manage differences with India, signalling a conciliatory tone heading into the talks.
India-China Tensions: Significance Of Xi-Modi Meeting Today
Saturday’s meeting between Xi and Modi carries weight far beyond the customary diplomatic choreography of a summit sideline. The two countries fought their deadliest border clash in decades in the summer of 2020, when a violent confrontation in the Galwan Valley of eastern Ladakh left soldiers dead on both sides for the first time in 45 years along the disputed frontier.
That crisis froze high-level engagement between New Delhi and Beijing for years, grounded direct flights, and left both governments maintaining tens of thousands of additional troops, artillery and infrastructure along a roughly 3,500-kilometre stretch of the Himalayas that neither side has ever formally agreed upon as a border.
Xi’s arrival in India, his first in nearly seven years, is itself a measure of how far the relationship has travelled since then, even if the underlying dispute remains as unresolved as ever.
What has changed in recent months is more procedural than fundamental, but analysts say it has been enough to make Saturday’s talks meaningful rather than merely symbolic.
Military commanders from both sides have negotiated new patrolling arrangements at several friction points along the LAC, direct commercial flights between India and China have resumed after a five-year suspension, and Beijing has eased visa restrictions for Indian business travellers, moves that officials on both sides have cited as evidence of a genuine, if cautious, thaw.
Yet none of this amounts to a resolution of the underlying territorial dispute, and both militaries remain deployed in substantial numbers along the frontier, a reality that will sit alongside the two leaders throughout their conversation regardless of what is said publicly afterwards.
The stakes extend well beyond the border itself. For India, any further stabilisation of ties with Beijing would ease pressure on a foreign policy that has had to balance a hostile neighbour, a key security partnership with Washington, and continued economic reliance on Chinese manufacturing and supply chains.
For China, deeper engagement with India offers a chance to shore up its standing within the Global South at a moment when Beijing is contending with its own trade tensions with the United States, and to demonstrate that its regional relationships can improve even without a final settlement on contested territory.
That asymmetry of motives is precisely why diplomats and analysts describe Saturday’s meeting as a genuine test, one whose significance will be measured less by any single statement to emerge from Bharat Mandapam than by whether New Delhi and Beijing can sustain this fragile momentum long after the cameras and delegations have left the summit.
Why Does This Visit Matter For India-China Ties?
The visit comes after a gradual thaw in relations following the deadly 2020 military standoff in eastern Ladakh, which plunged bilateral ties to their lowest point in decades. Recent months have brought incremental progress, including new patrolling arrangements along the LAC, the resumption of direct flights between the two countries, and eased business visa procedures, laying the groundwork for this weekend’s renewed top-level engagement.
The Modi-Xi meeting is likely to be watched less for any single announcement than for whether it signals a more predictable, durable framework for managing the two countries’ unresolved strategic differences going forward.
This year also marks India’s fourth BRICS chairship, with China set to take over the bloc’s rotating chair once the New Delhi summit concludes.
What Happened With Putin And Pezeshkian?
Putin arrived in New Delhi on Friday for a three-day visit, his first overseas BRICS summit appearance since Russia’s war in Ukraine began, with his talks with Modi centred on energy, trade, defence and broader strategic cooperation between the two longstanding partners.
Modi’s meeting with Pezeshkian, held later the same evening, focused heavily on maritime security, with Modi stressing the importance of safe navigation and the protection of seafarers amid heightened tensions across West Asia tied to the ongoing conflict involving Iran.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in his own meeting with Modi, underscored the importance of multipolarity and the need to reform multilateral institutions, including the UN Security Council, to better reflect contemporary global realities.
What Else Is On PM Modi’s Schedule?
Beyond his meetings with Xi, Putin and Pezeshkian, Modi is holding a series of further bilateral talks across the summit, including with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung, and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The formal BRICS programme opened Saturday afternoon with a closed-door session on inclusive global governance and strengthening multilateralism, part of a summit themed “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability” under India’s 2026 chairship. Delhi remains under heavy security, with tight traffic restrictions in place across the capital as the city hosts one of its largest diplomatic gatherings since the 2023 G20 summit.
