Chinese President Xi Jinping traveled to India, for the first time in seven years, to attend the 18th BRICS summit, held in New Delhi on September 12-13, 2026. As the annual summit of the now 11-member bloc took place less than two weeks before Xi’s planned visit to Washington, we approached several analysts to reflect on the summit’s key deliverables and its significance amid the intensifying US-China rivalry, the continued territorial disputes between China and India, and ongoing changes in the broader geopolitical environment.
Formal thaw, not a turn
Vladimíra Ličková, CEIAS Research Fellow
The 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi gave India and China a high-profile stage to signal warmer relations, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting on Indian soil for the first time since the deadly 2020 border clashes. Both leaders discussed managing their differences, but beneath the warmer rhetoric, unresolved border tensions, a lopsided trade relationship and competing regional ambitions mean the relationship remains defined by cautious rivalry and competition.
The BRICS Summit marked Xi’s first visit to India in seven years, following a gradual and slow restoration of high-level contacts, direct flights and other links since the 2020 Himalayan standoff. In their bilateral meeting on the summit’s sidelines, Modi and Xi called for a “fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable” resolution to the border dispute and agreed to deepen cultural, business, and transport ties while addressing trade imbalances and supply-chain concerns. The two countries, however, still have an unresolved territorial dispute, with heavy military deployments along a roughly 3,500-km border; a trade imbalance heavily skewed in China’s favor; and broader competing interests for influence across Asia and the Global South. The summit reflects both sides’ choice to expand cooperation where their interests overlap while remaining cautious and reserved towards one another.
That split is visible within BRICS itself: China is pushing initiatives like an open-source AI zone and deeper industrial and supply-chain integration, while India has explicitly warned against the weaponization of critical technologies and minerals, a pointed reference to Beijing’s significant leverage over rare earths. The irony is that Prime Minister Modi is warning against precisely the kind of strategic dependency India is trying to reduce in its relationship with China.
The summit also exposed a structural difference in how the two capitals—and, to varying degrees, other members of the grouping—perceive BRICS itself. From being a counterweight to the US and an instrument for a more multipolar world order in Beijing’s eyes, to New Delhi treating it as a platform for greater cooperation in and representation of the Global South, this puts a clear limit on how far their visions of BRICS, and the wider international order, can converge.
What is easy to overlook, however, is that this thaw is not purely a two-country story. Xi’s Delhi trip came just as Washington and Beijing were separately negotiating their own tariff and rare-earth arrangements, and as the Trump administration suggested an alignment toward a critical-minerals bloc explicitly designed to reduce dependence on China. Modi’s caution on “weaponized” technology reads very differently once we see it as reassurance aimed at Washington as much as a warning to Beijing. In other words, India is not just managing its relationship with China; it is using that relationship as leverage in its relationship with the US, and vice versa. This summit further showed India’s multi-alignment strategy, using BRICS to keep its options open with Beijing while under tariff pressure from Washington.
Cooperation without convergence
Mahima Duggal, Doctoral Researcher at German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)
Xi Jinping’s first visit to India in almost seven years for the 18th BRICS+ summit, following the deterioration of bilateral relations after the 2020 Galwan Valley clash, saw the Chinese leader argue that India and China should view each other as “partners rather than rivals.” At a time when both countries are navigating growing economic pressure from the US, albeit in very different ways, the meeting suggested a willingness to shelve differences and pursue selective cooperation.
Although symbolically significant, with the picture of Modi holding hands with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin likely signaling a moment of consensus between the major BRICS powers, the optics should not be read as a reset of India-China ties. The fundamentals of the relationship are unchanged: the persisting border dispute, China’s close strategic relationship with and military support for Pakistan and growing Chinese influence in India’s backyard remain key points of friction. This tension was visible in Modi’s closing remarks, where he subtly warned China (and the US) against weaponization of technology and critical minerals, even as Xi extended an offer to help develop open-source AI and smart manufacturing.
On the economic front, the substantial trade deficit and China’s heavy control of critical supply chains, such as active pharmaceutical ingredients and renewable energy sectors, create unease for India. Although both leaders agreed to take a long-term perspective and not let differences become disputes, bilateral trust remains low and requires carefully managed competition and selective cooperation.
This logic of selective cooperation without political convergence was also reflected in the broader trajectory of BRICS. Expansion has made the bloc economically more significant but politically less cohesive. On paper, the BRICS’ expansion gives it impressive demographic and economic weight: it comprises almost half the world’s population, 40% of global GDP, and 26% of global trade. Yet major players such as China, India, and Russia have different expectations of the forum. While they may share deep dissatisfaction with the existing order, their visions for an alternative order differ. Tensions in the Gulf amid the Iran war and long-standing active conflicts between several member states limit how far the grouping can develop common political positions.
The Summit reflected these political fragmentations, but also showed that the bloc can manage divisions without hindering functional cooperation in areas ranging from sustainability to development finance and supply-chain resilience. The fact that the group reached consensus and unanimously endorsed a joint declaration (something that seemed unlikely mere months ago) marked a significant achievement. On many sensitive issues, the group carefully negotiated the language. For example, while it called for restraint in the Middle East and criticized unilateral tariffs, it avoided explicitly calling out Washington. Similarly, it condemned the terrorist attack in Pahalgam in the strongest terms, but without naming Pakistan. Such formulations reveal the limits of political consensus but also the pragmatism of member states and the changing geopolitical incentives that enable selective cooperation.
The real challenge for the group will begin now, as it must translate the consensus displayed into concrete outcomes under China’s presidency. Effectively managing tensions between member states, particularly India and China, will be crucial in this process.
A symbolic step forward
Ivan Lidarev, Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore (ISAS-NUS)
The Modi-Xi meeting at the BRICS Summit in New Delhi was a success. It produced no tangible results but moved China-India relations forward. The very fact that the meeting took place, after much uncertainty about whether President Xi would visit New Delhi after seven years, confirmed that the two sides are committed to continuing and “further elevating” the post-2024 thaw in their relations. The meeting also reinforced the diplomatic momentum from the Modi-Xi meeting at the 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin, which was Modi’s first visit to China since 2018, and strengthened the thaw’s Chinese leg.
Of course, the meeting produced no deliverables. However, this was never its objective. The Modi-Xi meeting aimed to symbolize improved relations after the difficult 2020-2024 period and build on the outcomes of the Special Representatives’ talks in August, which introduced new measures for managing the disputed border and advanced talks to achieve “early harvest” agreements on the dispute. The Modi-Xi meeting also set a positive narrative framework for the otherwise competitive China-India relationship, emphasizing partnership, opportunities for economic cooperation, and the idea that “differences should not become disputes.” This rhetoric might seem routine and shallow, but it plays an important political role. It not only signals the desire to improve relations to the other side and to key domestic audiences but also counters substantial domestic opposition to improving relations.
Ironically, the differing readouts of the two sides from the meeting also highlighted the many unresolved bilateral issues that generate tensions in the China-India relationship. For the Chinese side, these included Taiwan, Tibet, and interference by third parties, a reference to India’s partnerships with Washington and Tokyo. At the same time, the Chinese readout suggested that Prime Minister Modi reassured President Xi on these points, reassurances which were tellingly lacking in the Indian version. For India, the grievances included border stability, trade imbalances, market access, and supply-chain issues. Importantly, both sides agreed that these points of tension can and should be managed.
The border dispute and its place in relations was the main point of disagreement in the meeting. China insisted that the dispute should be kept separate from the rest of the relationship and downgraded in importance, while India conditioned the relationship on stability along the border, suggesting that the dispute remains the central issue for bilateral relations. This fundamental disagreement has haunted relations since 2020 and has great disruptive potential, but it has not derailed the post-2024 thaw.
So what are the larger strategic implications of the Modi-Xi meeting? It has not introduced new geopolitical dynamics but has reinforced existing trends. India has reaffirmed its balanced, “multi-aligned” foreign policy and gained additional leverage in its troubled partnership with the US. China has further stabilized its strategic environment and strengthened its position against the US and against Japan. Both Beijing and Delhi have re-emphasized BRICS as a key vehicle for their foreign policies and as an institutional and ideational bridge between them.
