The two leaders ‘expressed commitment’ to resolving contested border issue, India’s foreign ministry says.
The leaders of India and China have agreed to work together towards resolving their countries’ contested border, New Delhi’s foreign ministry says.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of a summit of the BRICS group of emerging nations in New Delhi on Saturday.
The visit is being closely watched because it is Xi’s first trip to India in seven years, 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 two also pledged to build up their countries’ cultural, business and transport links, New Delhi said.
“On economic and trade relations, they 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,” it added.
Areas for cooperation growing
Xi said Beijing has always viewed and developed China-India relations from a strategic and long-term perspective, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Institutional exchanges between the two countries are gradually being restored, the list of areas for cooperation is growing and bilateral trade has reached a new high, Xi said according to Xinhua.
Xi landed in New Delhi earlier on Saturday. His entourage includes Foreign Minister Wang Yi and high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official Cai Qi.
The trip comes six years after a deadly 2020 military clash along India and China’s disputed Tibetan border, with ties gradually improving 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.
“They are looking for ‘early and substantial harvest’ when it comes to the border issue,” Pradeep Taneja, a China-India expert at the University of Melbourne, said, as reported by the AFP news agency. “You cannot have a buildup of your forces on the border … but at the same time say ‘we should continue to have people-to-people relations and economic relationships.’”
Deep mistrust remains, however, with their contested Himalayan frontier, a widening trade deficit and strategic rivalry still complicating ties.
Dozens of Tibetans living in exile, like their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, protested in New Delhi on Friday, waving placards against Xi’s visit.
BRICS leaders gather
The Russian and Iranian presidents were among those who arrived in the Indian capital on Friday for the BRICS summit.
On Saturday, the 11-nation bloc issued a joint declaration calling for calm in the Middle East and stressing the need to work together to maintain the smooth flow of global trade.
The conflicts in Palestine, Iran and Ukraine, along with global trade turbulence and energy security, are expected to dominate the two-day meeting.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin held talks with Modi on Friday and agreed to further strengthen the “special” relationship between their countries.
During a meeting with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, Modi underscored the need to protect freedom of navigation and commerce, as well as the safety and wellbeing of ships’ crews.
India has navigated the energy crisis caused by the United States-Iran war in part by turning to Russia, despite Moscow’s war in Ukraine and pressure from Washington and other Western capitals.
BRICS was created in 2009 as a forum for major emerging economies seeking greater influence in institutions dominated by Western powers.