The move came well ahead of Thursday’s announcement that Xi will travel to New Delhi for the September 12-13 BRICS summit at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It will be his first visit to India in seven years.
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Xi is scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Modi on Saturday evening, diplomatic sources told Times of India.
The Chinese president is expected to arrive in New Delhi at 12.10 pm on Saturday and leave at 12.20 pm the following day, making his visit exactly 24 hours long. A separate Chinese business delegation is also expected to travel to India in connection with the visit.
Xi will be accompanied by senior Chinese officials, including Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Politburo and one of Xi’s closest political aides, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
The Chinese delegation is expected to reach Bharat Mandapam around 2 pm on Saturday, where Modi and other leaders will welcome the visiting heads of government.The bilateral between Modi and Xi is likely to take place between the BRICS closed session on multilateralism and the dinner Modi is scheduled to host for the leaders at 7.30 pm. Xi is expected to attend the dinner.
Visit announced late, preparations underway for weeks
The timing of Beijing’s public announcement had triggered speculation over why China had waited so long to confirm Xi’s participation. However, people familiar with the preparations told Times of India that Beijing had formally conveyed his participation to the Indian side weeks earlier.
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The August 27 visa request for Xi’s delegation was a key indication that preparations for the visit were already underway.
Xi’s trip is expected to build on the improvement in India-China ties since his meeting with Modi on the margins of the BRICS summit in Kazan in 2024. That meeting marked the resolution of issues linked to the 2020 military standoff in eastern Ladakh and a broader effort to restore engagement between the two countries.
Modi is expected to raise concerns over fair market access, supply-chain reliability and the imbalance in bilateral trade during his meeting with Xi, as both sides look to expand economic ties.
At Kazan, the two leaders agreed to revive high-level engagement and tasked their Special Representatives on the India-China boundary question with overseeing peace and tranquillity along the border. India has maintained that peace and tranquillity in the border areas is a prerequisite for the broader development of bilateral relations.
The Special Representatives were also asked to explore a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question. The two sides agreed to maintain contact through their foreign ministers and other senior officials.
Since then, the Special Representatives have held three rounds of boundary talks. Their latest meeting in August resulted in eight outcomes, including a decision to finalise terms of reference for an early and substantial harvest of boundary delimitation and border management.
