Border tensions in Arunachal, economic issues set to dominate Modi-Xi bilateral

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday (September 12, 2026), with a view to improving trade and people-to-people relations, while border tensions continue to play out in the background. Although Mr. Xi has visited India on two other occasions, to Goa for BRICS in 2016 and Mamallapuram for a high-level retreat, this will be his first visit to Delhi since 2014, and many of the concerns from that visit still remain. Neither leader has made a bilateral visit since 2020, however. As a result, experts say that while it is too early to declare an India-China “reset”, they hope the third meeting between the two leaders in three years will yield more open conversations on resolving differences. 

“Episodic summitry between India and China must move towards a steady and sustained process of stabilisation both on the military/political front and from the angle of economic relations,” former Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to China and the United States Nirupama Menon Rao told The Hindu.