Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to India: Will come to Delhi to participate in BRICS summit

For the first time in seven years, Chinese President Xi Jinping is visiting India. Xi is coming to participate in the BRICS summit to be held in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September.

China's Foreign Ministry has confirmed that Xi Jinping will be in Delhi for the annual BRICS summit, but it is not yet clear whether he will hold a bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Earlier in the year 2019, Xi Jinping had come to India for an informal summit held in Mamallapuram near Chennai.

This visit is being seen as an important diplomatic initiative. This may impact the ongoing efforts to stabilize bilateral relations between the two Asian powers as well as BRICS cooperation.

This visit is taking place at a time when the global situation is complex due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war. Besides, India's energy security has also been affected.

However, it is expected that Xi Jinping's visit will create a more favorable environment for the recent warming in diplomatic relations between the two big neighboring countries.

In the year 2020, 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the clash in Galwan near the India-China border. After this the relations between the two countries deteriorated further. China had claimed that only four of its soldiers were killed in this conflict.

However, relations have improved in recent years, especially after Modi traveled to attend the SCO meeting in Tianjin, China last year.

Harsh Pant, an international affairs expert and Vice President of Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, says that US President Donald Trump's distrustful policies have definitely given both the countries a place where they can come to the negotiating table with more common interests than their differences.

Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that this week, on September 6, the first Senior Highest Military Commander-level flag meeting was held in Wacha towards the Indian border in Arunachal Pradesh and on September 7 in Damai towards the Chinese border.

In the year 2024, the BRICS summit was held in Kazan, Russia, in which PM Modi and Xi Jinping met after almost five years and both the leaders welcomed the agreement to withdraw troops from the LAC and resolve the dispute that had started in 2020.

Harsh Pant says that relations between the two countries have definitely taken a turn but trust deficit and trade deficit are still two important issues between the two countries.

In March this year, India had relaxed some restrictions imposed on Chinese investment. These restrictions were imposed after the clashes in Galwan.

Xi and Modi met briefly at a regional forum in Kyrgyzstan this month, China's Foreign Ministry told Reuters, saying the two countries were "not rivals, but partners, and not a threat but an opportunity for each other's development."

Global Times, in one of its articles last Tuesday, expressed hope that economic and trade relations between the two countries will improve in the 18th BRICS Summit.