India and China offered differing readouts after Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping held bilateral talks on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi.
The two leaders committed to a ‘fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable’ resolution of the boundary dispute, referencing the 25th Round of Special Representative talks on August 25 and flag meetings between military commanders on September 6-7.
New Delhi maintained that border peace remains an indispensable foundation for overall ties, while Beijing proposed parallel, mutually reinforcing progress between cooperation and the boundary question.
Modi and Xi also discussed structural trade imbalances, supply chain concerns and predictable market access as part of the economic discussions.
The meeting marked Xi’s first visit to India in seven years, and his first with Modi since the 2020 border standoff significantly strained relations.
Senior military commander-level flag meetings between India and China took place on September 6-7, 2026, ahead of the Modi-Xi bilateral.
Modi and Xi agreed that both countries must take a ‘strategic and long-term perspective’ of their ties, and should not let differences become disputes.
The two leaders said stable India-China relations rested on three principles: mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interests.
India and China also discussed addressing structural trade imbalances, supply chain concerns and predictable market access as part of the economic component of the talks.
This was Xi Jinping’s first visit to India in seven years, and his first meeting with Modi since the 2020 border standoff significantly strained bilateral ties.
China’s readout of the meeting reportedly framed bilateral cooperation as something that could advance in parallel with resolving the boundary question, a formulation India has traditionally resisted.
India has consistently maintained that peace and tranquillity along the border are an indispensable foundation for the normal development of overall bilateral relations.
The bilateral meeting took place on the sidelines of the 18th BRICS Summit hosted by India in New Delhi.
PM Modi meeting President Xi Jinping, PIB/Wikimedia Commons, GODL-India
Discover more from Times Release
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.