Xi Jinping heads to India as BRICS summit tests divided grouping
Wars, trade turbulence and energy security are expected to shape the 11-nation summit, while Xi’s meeting with Narendra Modi will put India-China tensions under scrutiny.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has travelled to New Delhi for the two-day 18th BRICS summit, where conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, global trade turbulence and energy security are expected to dominate discussions.
Xi departed Beijing on Saturday at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency. His delegation includes Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and senior Communist Party official Cai Qi.
The visit is Xi’s first to India since 2019 and comes as relations between the two nuclear-armed powers cautiously improve. Flights, visas and high-level contacts have resumed since a deadly border clash in 2020, but the countries’ roughly 3,500-kilometre disputed Himalayan frontier remains unresolved, with substantial military deployments on both sides.
Xi is due to hold face-to-face talks with Modi on Saturday, according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs. The meeting will be closely watched for evidence of progress on the border dispute, as well as the broader tensions created by strategic rivalry and a widening trade deficit.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in New Delhi ahead of the summit. Putin held talks with Modi, while the Indian prime minister told Pezeshkian that freedom of navigation and commerce, and the safety of ships’ crews, should be protected.
The summit follows India’s efforts to address an energy crisis linked in the source material to the United States-Iran war by turning to Russia. Dozens of Tibetans living in exile also protested against Xi’s visit in New Delhi. BRICS, established in 2009, has expanded from its original five members to an 11-nation grouping.
