PM Modi-Xi talks on cards as China’s president returns to Delhi after 7 years

India and China look to build on two years of border de-escalation as Modi and Xi prepare to meet on the sidelines of BRICS

PGurus Newsdesk

September 10, 2026

PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold their first face-to-face bilateral talks in India since the 2020 Galwan clash, on day 1 of the BRICS summit at Bharat Mandapam

This will be Modi’s second major bilateral of the summit, alongside his meeting with Putin

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will sit down with Chinese President Xi Jinping on September 12, the opening day of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, top diplomatic sources say — a meeting that carries far more weight than a routine sideline chat. It will mark the two leaders’ first face-to-face bilateral talks in India since the Galwan Valley clash of 2020, and Xi’s first visit to the country in nearly seven years.

Xi is expected to arrive in Delhi for the two-day summit, hosted at Bharat Mandapam on September 12 and 13. The two leaders did cross paths at the SCO Summit in Bishkek this past August, but didn’t hold a formal bilateral meeting there — making this the real test of where India-China ties actually stand.

Sources say the talks will likely cover the full state of the relationship: the situation along the Line of Actual Control, trade, and economic ties. The two countries have spent the past two years quietly working to ease border tensions, and this meeting is being read as an attempt to build on that progress rather than just paper over it. Even so, businesses on both sides continue to run into friction — regulatory restrictions on investment, visa delays, and curbs on moving industrial equipment across the border.

Xi’s visit will be part of a broader show for the summit. New Delhi has been decked out with posters and lit-up installations, and the guest list includes leaders from all 11 full BRICS member states, alongside an expanding roster of partner countries. Besides Xi, Modi is also scheduled to hold a separate bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the summit — meaning Delhi’s two biggest strategic conversations of the year could happen back to back, in the same week.

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