Modi, Xi 'expressed commitment' to resolving border issue: India

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to work together towards resolving their countries’ contested border, New Delhi’s foreign ministry said Saturday after the leaders met.

Xi’s visit to New Delhi, to attend the 11-nation member BRICS summit, is being closely watched because it is his first to neighbouring India since 2019, and the biggest step yet in a cautious thaw between the nuclear-armed rivals.

“Although our two countries are different in many respects, they are fully capable of complementing each other’s strengths, supporting one another, achieving mutual success and advancing together,” Xi said as he met Modi, in a video released from New Delhi.

India’s foreign ministry said in a statement after the meeting that “the two leaders expressed commitment to a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question”.

Modi “underlined the need for both sides to observe existing agreements and understandings on border related issues,” it added.

The Chinese leader is visiting six years after a deadly military clash along the disputed border.

Ties have since gradually improved through restored flights, visas and high-level contacts.

The underlying territorial dispute remains unresolved, and both sides retain heavy military deployments along their roughly 3,500-kilometre (2,175-mile) high-altitude border along Tibet.

Dozens of Tibetans protested in New Delhi on Friday – exiles, like their Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since fleeing a Chinese crackdown in 1959 – waving placards against Xi’s visit.

“Differences should not become disputes,” New Delhi’s foreign ministry said, in a statement.

It said that Modi had “highlighted that both sides must be guided by three mutuals – mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interest”.

Trade was another focus of the meeting.

China is now India’s largest trading partner, with bilateral goods trade reaching $151 billion in the 2025-26 financial year, according to Indian government data.

“Both sides should… work hand-in-hand to promote high-quality major financial cooperation, advocate an equal and sustainable global order, and foster an economic globalisation that is open and inclusive,” Xi said.

But the relationship is heavily tilted towards Beijing. India imported $131 billion of goods from China, while exports were $19 billion, leaving a record $112 billion trade deficit.

The two leaders “underlined the need to address each other’s concerns, including structural trade imbalance and supply chain issues, and facilitation of meaningful and predictable market access”, the Indian foreign ministry statement said.