Report: After Years of Tension, China’s President May Make a Landmark Visit to India

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to travel to New Delhi next month to attend the BRICS summit, the bloc of developing nations, in a move that could become one of the clearest symbols yet of renewed efforts to bring China and India closer together. According to a Reuters report published yesterday (Monday), Xi is expected to lead an especially large delegation of roughly 400 officials.

If the plans go ahead, it will be the Chinese president’s first visit to India in seven years. The last time he visited the country was in 2019, when the delegation accompanying him included fewer than 200 officials. According to an Indian source, China’s preparations for the trip are already underway, with Beijing representatives handling, among other things, hotel arrangements and security procedures.

India will host the BRICS summit on September 12 and 13. Beyond the expected discussions within the forum, considerable attention is focused on the very possibility of Xi coming to New Delhi and on the political significance of such a visit after years of tension between the two Asian powers.

Still, Xi’s final travel plans have not yet been set, nor has the agenda for a possible bilateral meeting between China and India. China’s Foreign Ministry did not confirm the visit, saying that “at present, we have no information we can provide” about whether the president will attend the summit. At the same time, the ministry emphasized that China “attaches great importance to and actively participates in cooperation within the BRICS framework,” and that it supports India, which holds the organization’s presidency this year, in its efforts to host the summit successfully. Xi did not attend the previous BRICS summit, held in Brazil in 2025.

The possible visit comes after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to China last year also for the first time in seven years. But the thaw in relations since then has been only gradual, and in recent months a new dispute has emerged over their shared border, accompanied by sharp diplomatic exchanges.

China and India share a border stretching roughly 3,800 kilometers through the Himalayas. Large portions of it are not clearly marked, and for years it has been at the center of a dispute between the world’s two most populous countries, both of which possess nuclear weapons.

Decades of relative calm along the border came to an end in 2020, when clashes between the sides claimed the lives of 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers. The military standoff that followed continued for four years, until the sides reached an agreement in October 2024 to withdraw their forces.

Alongside their ongoing rivalry, the trade policies of U.S. President Donald Trump have created a certain point of connection between Beijing and New Delhi. Against that backdrop, Xi’s possible participation in the BRICS summit could signal that the two countries do not want to allow outside pressures to undermine cooperation within the organization.

BRICS, which has a distinctly anti-Western character, includes China and India alongside Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries. If Xi does arrive in New Delhi in September, the meeting could become another test of the two rivals’ ability to advance cooperation within the organization while the disputes that still shape their relationship continue.