China confirms Xi Jinping will attend the New Delhi BRICS summit on 12-13 September

China's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that President Xi Jinping will attend the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September, at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The statement ends weeks of official silence about whether Xi would travel. It also sets up his first visit to India since the informal summit with Modi at Mamallapuram in 2019.

A bilateral meeting on the sidelines is expected on Saturday, according to Indian and Chinese officials quoted in New Delhi and Beijing. If it happens, it will be the first formal one-on-one talks between the two leaders on Indian soil since the Galwan Valley clash of June 2020, in which 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese troops died.

Xi last came to India in 2019. He had visited Goa for the 2016 BRICS summit and made his first trip as president in September 2014. The seven-year gap tracks the freeze that followed the eastern Ladakh standoff. Patrols along the 3,500-kilometre Line of Actual Control were suspended after 2020. Direct flights stopped. Border trade closed. High-level visits dried up.

The thaw has been staged, not sudden. In 2024 the two sides agreed to resume patrols. Direct flights restarted in 2025. This year they reopened border trade at three Himalayan crossings and jointly organised pilgrimages to sites in Tibet. Top trade negotiators held their first bilateral meeting since 2019. New Delhi then authorised two large state-owned firms to buy critical components from China, lifting a set of 2020 restrictions.

Chinese customs data put two-way trade last year at a record $155 billion, up 12.4 percent and more than double the $71.6 billion of a decade earlier. The imbalance remains large. India still treats Chinese investment in sensitive sectors as a security question. The 25th round of Special Representative talks, held in Beijing on 28 August between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, covered the boundary, peace along the LAC, and steps to keep the present momentum.

The summit itself sits at Bharat Mandapam. India holds the BRICS chair this year. The grouping now includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, plus ten partner countries. Confirmed attendees named in New Delhi briefings include Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Some reports put Xi's travelling party near 400 officials, roughly twice the 2019 contingent.

The agenda covers trade, financial cooperation, technology, energy security, climate and reform of global institutions. The harder problem is cohesion. The US-Iran war, now in its seventh month, splits members who sit on opposite sides of the conflict. Iran is in the room. So are the UAE and Saudi Arabia. India has to chair a statement that can survive that split without forcing New Delhi off its own line with Washington.

For India the visit is also a test of what the thaw is worth. Officials say a Modi-Xi meeting could touch the boundary question, regional security, trade and investment, people-to-people contact, and mechanisms to stop another LAC spike. None of those files has a finished settlement. What has changed is the willingness to put the two leaders in the same city and, if the schedule holds, in the same room.

Delhi Police have put about 30,000 personnel on summit security. Around 500 cameras have been added in the Tughlak Road area. Three Russian aircraft were reported at Noida airport ahead of Putin's arrival. China is due to take the BRICS chair next year. Modi has already told Wang Yi that India will support that handover.

The last time Xi and Modi shared a stage was at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Kyrgyzstan. They shook hands. They did not hold a formal bilateral. Saturday, if it happens, would be the first such meeting since Galwan. The statement from Beijing on Thursday made the travel official. It did not write the communique.