Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the national capital on Saturday for a two-day visit to attend the BRICS Summit, marking his first trip to India in seven years—a step that is expected to boost the overall trajectory of bilateral relations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host President Xi for bilateral talks on Saturday evening.
The Chinese leader was received at the Delhi airport by Union Minister Jitin Prasada, as cultural artistes performed traditional dances to welcome Xi.
People familiar with the matter said the visit presents a key opportunity to further normalise relations that came under severe strain following the eastern Ladakh military standoff.
LAC situation, ties on agenda
Xi's visit to India comes on the heels of several high-level exchanges, including the Special Representative dialogue in Beijing between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, even as concerns linger over aggressive Chinese military posturing along the Arunachal Pradesh sector.
The Chinese leader is accompanied by a high-level delegation comprising government officials and top business leaders.
Both sides have rolled out a series of confidence-building measures over the past year to repair ties frayed by the more than four-and-a-half-year military standoff in eastern Ladakh.
In their talks, 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, including through expanded trade and investment ties, people familiar with the matter said.
The meeting is slated to take place at 6 pm.
Modi-Xi meetings have resumed
Modi and Xi held wide-ranging talks on August 31 last year on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Chinese city of Tianjin.
In the last few months, the two sides have taken a series of measures to rebuild their relationship after it came under severe strain following the deadly Galwan Valley clashes in 2020.
Boundary talks continue
NSA Doval held Special Representative (SR) talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang late last month that focused on delimitation of the frontier and sustaining work on trans-boundary cooperation as well as 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.