Xi Jinping to Visit India for BRICS Summit, First Time in 7 Years — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Xi Jinping is expected to attend the Sept 12-13 BRICS summit in New Delhi, his first India visit in seven years, per three Indian sources with direct knowledge.
- Xi is likely to bring a delegation of about 400 officials, more than double the fewer than 200 officials who accompanied him on his last India visit in 2019.
- India and China are using the summit to expand engagement while managing longstanding border and regional security differences, with India's NSA Ajit Doval having travelled to Beijing on Aug 24 to meet Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the boundary issue.
- Border tensions persist despite the diplomatic thaw: on Aug 12 India said peace along the border was critical to ties after Indian and Chinese army patrols came face-to-face in late July near a remote area.
- The 2020 border clashes killed 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers and triggered a four-year military standoff that ended with a disengagement pact only in October 2024.
- China's foreign ministry said it attaches importance to BRICS and supports India's chairmanship but added it had 'no information available to provide' on Xi's visit; Xi missed the 2025 BRICS summit in Brazil.
- Trump's trade policies have created an area of US-India-China convergence, with the article noting neither Beijing nor New Delhi wants external pressure to undermine BRICS.
Why it matters: The roughly 400-person delegation — more than double the 2019 contingent of under 200 — signals Beijing is treating the New Delhi summit as a substantive diplomatic milestone rather than a routine appearance. But with Indian and Chinese patrols still clashing in late July and a fresh diplomatic flare-up on Aug 12, the visit tests whether the post-2024 disengagement pact can hold under continued military friction along the 3,800km Himalayan border.
Ask SkimNews
