Chinese president begins two-day visit to India, first in seven years
The visit is Xi's first to India in seven years and comes as the Asian neighbours cautiously rebuild ties that were badly damaged after a military clash on their disputed Himalayan border in 2020 in which 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the Indian capital on Saturday for the summit of leaders of the BRICS group of countries and talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian TV channels showed.
The visit is Xi's first to India in seven years and comes as the Asian neighbours cautiously rebuild ties that were badly damaged after a military clash on their disputed Himalayan border in 2020 in which 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed.
Xi stepped out of his plane to a red carpet welcome and was greeted by women performing traditional Indian dances.
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The Xi-Modi meeting, scheduled for Saturday evening, will be their third in three years, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry said on Friday.
China "is willing" to work together with India, to view two-way relations from a strategic and long-term perspective, to properly manage differences, and to be "good neighbours and friends, as well as mutually supportive partners," the spokesperson said.
This is Xi's first visit to India since the June 2020 incident in which at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed in fighting in the Galwan River Valley.
Modi and Xi held wide-ranging talks on 31 August last year on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Chinese city of Tianjin.
In their talks today, Modi and Xi are expected to review the overall situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and explore further ways to normalise bilateral relations.
The Chinese leader's trip to India comes on the heels of several high-level bilateral exchanges, including the Special Representatives (SRs) dialogue in Beijing between India's National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi late last month amidst concerns over Chinese military posturing along the Arunachal Pradesh sector.
The conversation between Doval and Wang focused on the delimitation of the boundary, sustaining work on trans-boundary cooperation, and maintaining peace along the LAC.
Both Doval and Wang are the designated SRs for the boundary talks mechanism, which was established in 2003 to comprehensively address the dispute over the India-China border spanning 3,488 km.
The nuclear-armed neighbours share a roughly 3,800-km (2,400-mile), largely undemarcated and disputed border in the Himalayas.
BRICS includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
The summit is being held amid geopolitical tensions triggered by the US-Israeli war with Iran, the Russia-Ukraine war and the disruption they have caused to global energy, trade and transport.
