Xi Tells Modi China, India Can Pursue "Shared Development"

(MENAFN) Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held high-level talks Saturday on the sidelines of the 18th BRICS Leaders' Summit, with Xi urging the two Asian giants to pursue "shared development" and draw on "each other's strengths," according to a state-run news agency.

The sit-down in the Indian capital marked Xi's first trip to India in seven years. Calling for deeper cooperation between the neighboring powers, the Chinese leader said Beijing and New Delhi should "join hands for high-quality development of greater BRICS cooperation."

Saturday's discussion was the third straight year the two leaders have met face-to-face, continuing a run of engagements that began in Kazan, Russia, in 2024 and continued at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin last year. The pair also crossed paths at the SCO gathering in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, earlier this year, though no formal talks took place then.

Xi's last visit to India came in 2019 — just months before a bruising military standoff erupted between Chinese and Indian troops along the disputed Ladakh border. That crisis dragged on for more than four years and pushed relations between the two nuclear-armed nations to their coldest point in six decades.

Ties have warmed steadily since, bolstered by Modi's visit to China last year and renewed efforts on both sides to restore senior-level contact.

During Saturday's meeting, Xi framed the relationship in sweeping terms, telling Modi that "China and India should advocate an equal and orderly multipolar world." He added that Beijing approaches its ties with New Delhi from "a strategic and long-term perspective."

Modi Presses for Border Stability
According to a readout from India's Ministry of External Affairs, Modi told Xi that "both sides must be guided by three mutuals -- mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interest."

The prime minister also underscored that border calm remains foundational to the broader relationship, with the ministry noting Modi "emphasized that peace and tranquility in the border areas remains an essential basis for the continued development of bilateral relations."

Modi went further, the ministry said, stressing that both governments must honor past commitments on their contested frontier: "He underlined the need for both sides to observe existing agreements and understandings on border-related issues."

On the unresolved boundary dispute itself, the two leaders struck a note of cautious alignment. Per the ministry's statement, both sides "expressed commitment to a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question proceeding from the political perspective of their overall bilateral relations and the long-term interests of the two peoples."

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