A Modi-Xi Meeting Could Signal a Thaw Between India and China

A meeting between the two leaders comes just two days after they settled a tense border dispute in the Himalayas. But experts said their long-term geopolitical rivalry will persist.

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India met officially for the first time in more than five years on Wednesday at a summit of emerging market countries in Russia, raising the prospect of a potential thaw between the two Asian powers.

The session came two days after China and India reached a deal on patrolling their shared Himalayan border, the site of a deadly clash between Chinese and Indian forces in 2020. Relations between Beijing and New Delhi have been frosty ever since, with India drawing closer to the United States through a regional security grouping called the Quad.

In separate statements, both Mr. Xi and Mr. Modi highlighted the need for the neighboring countries to address their differences peacefully.

Mr. Xi told Mr. Modi a rapprochement was “in the fundamental interests of both countries,” according to Chinese state media, adding that China and India should “set an example for developing countries.”

Mr. Modi called for “stable, predictable and amicable” relations between the world’s two most populous countries, saying it would have “a positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity,” according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

Both leaders underscored their desire for a more “multipolar” world, an inference to the current global order where the United States dominates, wielding what China and India regard as unfair influence.

The meeting between Mr. Xi and Mr. Modi took place at the 16th annual BRICS summit, a group of non-Western countries whose acronym stems from its earliest members: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It expanded this year to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, growing to represent almost half the world’s population.

Established as a counterweight to U.S.-led forums like the Group of 7 and intended to give developing countries more influence, BRICS has struggled to speak with a unified voice. That, in no small part, is because of the competing interests of its two biggest members.

China wants to use the grouping to weaken the dominance of the United States and burnish its credentials as a leader of the so-called Global South. India also claims leadership of the Global South, but unlike China, remains firmly nonaligned and does not want BRICS to develop into an explicitly anti-Western body.

Experts said little would change within BRICS as a result of China and India moving to ease tensions. Beijing has ambitions to be the pre-eminent power in Asia.

“The thaw between India and China will not fundamentally alter the dynamics of BRICS because while the détente between the two Asian giants is in the interest of both players, their long-term geopolitical rivalry will remain,” said Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

India “has no desire to replace U.S. hegemony for Chinese hegemony,” Mr. Patrick continued, “and it is disinclined to have BRICS become an anti-Western bloc.”

During a round table session earlier on Wednesday, leaders of the BRICS conference discussed a range of issues, including creating financial platforms outside the reach of the U.S. dollar. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia offered a proposal to create a BRICS grain exchange that could evolve into a commodities exchange. Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter, and its war in Ukraine, another top grain exporter, sent prices soaring in 2022.

While improved ties between China and India could make BRICS a more cohesive group, a lasting thaw is anything but assured. Analysts warned that the border deal struck this week could fall apart, as details remained murky about how the two sides would patrol the disputed area, considered some of the least habitable terrain in Asia.

For China, easing tensions with India would help drive a wedge between New Delhi and Washington. It would also provide Beijing with one less headache at a time when it is struggling to turn around its sputtering economy, which has been battered by a property crisis.

As for India, a lasting border deal would come as a relief for Mr. Modi’s government, which took the largely symbolic step of banning dozens of Chinese apps, including TikTok, after the clash in 2020. Since then, Mr. Modi has tried to deflect attention from the conflict. He refused to take questions about it in parliament.

Smoother relations with China will leave India in a position straddling geopolitical forces within Asia. Washington has been courting New Delhi as a strategic counterweight to China, as it seeks to corral various states, most of them democracies, into a ring of defensive arrangements around Asia.

Indian foreign policy has long been defined by its overlapping and sometimes contradictory set of friends. It is the only country that sits inside both the Quad — the loose, defense-oriented club where it joins the United States, Japan and Australia — and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is dominated by China and Russia. The Shanghai group also includes Pakistan, India’s fiercest foe.

The United States has been working to tighten its ties with India for about 25 years. That has accelerated under both the Trump and Biden administrations, as India has been drawn into greater and greater economic, technological and military coordination with Washington. In the latest example, India signed a $3.5 billion deal last week to buy American Predator drones.