In their first formal discussions in five years, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday ( October 23 ) that their two countries should improve communication and cooperation and effectively manage disagreements.
The two officials met on the outside of the BRICS conference in Kazan, indicating that relations between the Asian giant having begun to resurrect following a devastating military conflict in 2020.
Two days prior to the appointment, New Delhi announced that it had reached a bargain with Beijing to end their four-year military compromise on their disputed Tibetan border.
The two factors should strengthen communication and cooperation, solve problems and differences, and understand each other’s growth dreams, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported Xi as telling Modi.
Since a fight between their soldiers on the mostly undelineated border in the northern Himalayas of Ladakh in 2020 left 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dying, relationships between the nation’s two most popular countries, both nuclear powers, have been strained.
Since adding tens of thousands of troops and weapons along the snowy border, the neighbors have increased their military appearance along the frozen border.
Despite both taking part in international events, Modi and Xi had not had formal bilateral discussions since.
Their most recent mountain discussions took place in the southeastern Indian city of Mamallapuram in October 2019.
On the outside of the G20 conference in Bali in November 2022, the two exchanged pleasantries.
They exchanged again on the eve of the BRICS conference in Johannesburg in August 2023, which ended up releasing various transcripts, which suggested the two parties had diverged.
Xi skipped the G20 summit that New Delhi hosted the following quarter, which was seen as yet another loss for their relationship.
After meeting in July and agreeing to move up speaks to relieve border tensions, political work gained momentum in recent months.
The two leaders ‘ discussions on Wednesday are anticipated to lead to more Chinese investment in India because improving the country’s wider political and business relations were conditioned on finding a solution to the frontier stand-off.
Since the Ladakh clashes, New Delhi had stepped up the investigation of opportunities coming from China, blocked strong planes between the two nations, and had almost prohibited issuing any visas to Chinese citizens.