Xi tells Modi at the BRICS meeting that China and India should work out their differences

Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to improve relations between their countries after a deadly military clash in 2020. They will do this by increasing contact and cooperation and resolving any conflicts that come up.

The two leaders met in Russia at the BRICS meeting for their first official talks in five years. This shows that relations between the Asian giants have started to heal after the fight along their disputed Himalayan border.

Two days before the meeting in Kazan, New Delhi said it had made a deal with Beijing to end the four-year military standoff in Ladakh in the Himalayas.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said that Xi told Modi that the two countries should improve their communication and cooperation, work out their differences and tensions, and help each other reach their goals for growth.

Modi replied to Xi that keeping the border peaceful and stable should be a top goal, and that the relationship should be based on trust, respect, and sensitivity.

He told Xi, “We welcome the agreement on the issues that had come up over the last four years.” These words were broadcast on Doordarshan, India’s state television station.

“Keeping the border peaceful and quiet should be our top priority.” Modi said, “Our relationship should be based on trust, respect, and sensitivity for each other.”

Relations between the two most populous countries in the world, which are also both nuclear powers, have been tense since 2020, when 20 Indian soldiers and 4 Chinese soldiers were killed in a fight on the mostly unmarked border in the western Himalayas.

Over the last four years, the neighbors have added tens of thousands of troops and weapons to their military along the icy border.

Since then, Modi and Xi had not had official talks with each other, but they had both been to multilateral events. They had their last summit meeting together in October 2019 in Mamallapuram, a town in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

They quickly talked and greeted each other at the G20 summit in Bali in November 2022. They talked again during the BRICS summit in Johannesburg in August 2023, but different versions of the chat were made public, which showed that they didn’t agree.

People saw Xi’s choice not to go to the G20 summit in New Delhi the next month as another setback in their relationship.

After the foreign ministers of both countries met in July and agreed to step up talks to ease tensions along the border, diplomatic efforts have picked up speed in recent months.

India had said that fixing the standoff at the border would only help business ties and not political ones. This means that the talks between the two leaders on Wednesday could lead to more Chinese investment in India.

Since the fights in Ladakh, New Delhi has been more careful with capital coming from China, stopped direct flights between the two countries, and has almost stopped giving visas to Chinese citizens.