New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping Sunday “reaffirmed” that the two countries are “development partners”, not “rivals”, with the Indian leader underlining that “peace and tranquillity” at the borders is key for the “continued development of bilateral relations”. The two leaders also “deemed it necessary” to expand common ground on bilateral, regional and global issues, and challenges such as terrorism and “fair trade” at multilateral platforms.
Modi and Xi met Sunday morning in the Chinese city of Tianjin, ahead of the Heads of State summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), hosted by China this year.
“[The] Prime Minister underlined the importance of peace and tranquility on the border areas for continued development of bilateral relations. The two leaders noted with satisfaction the successful disengagement last year and the maintenance of peace and tranquility along the border areas since then,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India, said in a statement.
The MEA statement added: “They expressed commitment to a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question proceeding from the political perspective of their overall bilateral relations and the long-term interests of the two peoples.”
The two leaders agreed that a “stable relationship” between India and China and “their 2.8 billion” peoples based on “mutual respect, mutual interest and mutual sensitivity” is necessary for a “multi-polar world and a multi-polar Asia”.
Modi’s visit is his first to China since 2018. It comes at a time as the India-China diplomatic thaw is gathering pace, while India-US ties are going through a rough patch. The MEA statement noted that the relationship between India and China “should not be seen through a third country lens”.
For over four years, diplomatic ties between New Delhi and Beijing had remained strained due to border tensions, followed by military clashes in the summer of 2020 at Galwan, Eastern Ladakh. The two countries had deployed thousands of military personnel, as well as defence platforms, while tensions had continued to simmer.
On 21 October 2024, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri first announced that the two countries had reached an agreement to disengage at the friction points across the Line of Actual Control, paving the way for Modi and Xi to meet a couple of days later in the Russian city of Kazan on the margins of the BRICS summit.
The Sunday meeting between the two leaders allowed other bilateral mechanisms to go forward, including the special representative (SR) discussions.
The two SRs agreed to seek a solution to the boundary question, according to the framework reached in 2005 under the Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question. The agreement bifurcates the boundary question from the larger bilateral ties.
India had kept its participation in the SCO on the back burner over the last two years, attending the Heads of State summit in 2024 virtually, with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar representing Modi. The summit was in Kazakhstan last year.
However, amid the current geopolitical tensions, Modi travelled to China and would meet with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin on the margins of the Tianjin summit. The other leaders in Tianjin are Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President of Türkiye Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev—all three leaders with whom India has had difficulties maintaining ties over the past year.
Terrorism, economy part of Modi-Xi discussions
The agreement for greater cooperation on terrorism comes in the backdrop of differences between New Delhi and Beijing in this area. China has long stymied the proscription of terrorists affiliated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation, at the 1267 sanctions committee of the United Nations Security Council. Beijing has maintained close ties with Islamabad for decades.
“On economic and trade relations, they recognised the role of their two economies to stabilise world trade. They underlined the need to proceed from a political and strategic direction to expand bilateral trade and investment ties and reduce trade deficit,” the MEA statement said on the economic aspect of ties.
India heavily imports goods from China, consistently accruing a large trade deficit. New Delhi has, in the past, pushed for a more balanced trade between the two countries. The economic aspect of ties is because India is keen to diversify its exports, given the current tensions with the US.
The US is the largest market for Indian goods, with exports from the South Asian nation touching $86 billion in the last financial year (2024-2025). United States President Donald Trump imposed tariffs of 50 percent on India earlier in August. It has been in place since 27 August.
The US President has, for a long time, called out the persistent trade surplus in favour of India, and in recent weeks, has aimed at New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil, touching $56 billion in the last financial year.
Negotiations for a trade deal between India and the US stalled a couple of months ago, with New Delhi refusing to open its agricultural and dairy sectors to more American imports. This move irritated the American administration, with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week saying that India has been stringing along the US during the negotiations.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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