PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 12, 2026, pledging a fair and mutually acceptable settlement of the long-running boundary dispute.

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• PM Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held bilateral talks on September 12, 2026, on the sidelines of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, Xi’s first visit to India in nearly seven years.
• The two leaders committed to a “fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable” resolution of the India-China boundary question.
• Modi stressed that peace and tranquillity in the border areas remains the essential basis for developing bilateral relations, while Xi’s readout called for parallel, mutually reinforcing progress on ties and the boundary issue.
• Both sides reaffirmed adherence to existing border agreements, referencing the 25th round of Special Representative talks held on August 25, 2026, and senior military commander-level flag meetings on September 6-7, 2026.
• No new institutional dialogue mechanism was announced at the meeting; both readouts pointed back to existing arrangements and earlier talks.
• Modi and Xi agreed to address concerns around structural trade imbalance, supply chain issues, and predictable market access between the two economies.
• China remains India’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching a record $151.1 billion in the year ending March 2026, even as India’s trade deficit with China widened to a record $112.16 billion.
• The Delhi meeting builds on a thaw in ties since Modi’s visit to Tianjin, China, in August 2025.
• Modi thanked Xi for China’s support of India’s chairship of BRICS and the summit’s outcomes.
• The bilateral talks came six years after the deadly 2020 Galwan Valley clash, which had sharply strained India-China relations.
• The 18th BRICS Summit, hosted by India for the first time, adopted the New Delhi Declaration on September 12 after last-minute negotiations involving Iran and the UAE over the text.