Modi, Xi agree India and China should be partners

President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have reached the "most important consensus" that China and India should be partners, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday, describing their meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit as a key step in taking ties forward.

Summing up Xi's two-day visit to New Delhi on September 12-13 for the 18th BRICS Summit, Wang said the two leaders had a candid and in-depth exchange on strategic, long-term and directional issues concerning bilateral ties. He said they agreed to maintain peace and tranquillity in border areas, support each other as rotating BRICS chair, and expand cooperation.

According to Wang, Xi said China and India could draw on each other's strengths, support one another, help each other succeed and pursue common development. Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said the Modi-Xi meeting drew widespread international attention.

A readout on the Chinese Foreign Ministry website said that, under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, China-India relations had gradually emerged from a low point and moved from a "restart" to a "renewed elevation". It said cooperation had continued to expand, trade had reached record highs, and people-to-people exchanges were becoming more dynamic.

Wang said the improvement in ties was welcomed by the more than 2.8 billion people of the two countries and was also an important pillar for stronger cooperation across the Global South. He said both sides had pledged to build political mutual trust further, manage differences and contradictions properly, and jointly uphold peace and tranquillity along the border. He added that the normalisation and improvement of ties had been hard-earned and should be cherished.

Expressing hope that India would work with China to turn the leaders' consensus into action, Wang said the two countries should remain partners rather than rivals and move ties forward steadily without stagnation or backsliding. He also said the border issue should be viewed in the broader context of bilateral relations, that dialogue and cooperation should remain the main trend, and that both countries should speed up their development and national renewal while working together for regional and global peace and shared prosperity.

Wang said Xi had urged both sides to use the political wisdom of mutual respect and understanding to overcome disruptions and pursue parallel progress in bilateral ties and border issues, with the two tracks reinforcing each other, so as to maintain peace and tranquillity in border areas. He said Modi responded positively and affirmed that India had always viewed India-China relations from a strategic and long-term perspective.

According to Wang, Modi said India was ready to be a "partner, not an adversary" to China and saw each other's development as an "opportunity rather than a challenge". Wang quoted Modi as saying India's approach to China was independent of third-party influence and that India would not allow any forces to carry out anti-China activities on its territory. He added that India remained committed to high-level exchanges with China, deeper strategic communication, and broader people-to-people ties based on mutual respect and trust.

Wang said the two leaders agreed to place development at the centre of shared interests, deepen friendly ties and mutually beneficial cooperation, and expand work in areas including cultural exchanges, people-to-people links and direct air connectivity. He said they also agreed to support each other's BRICS chairmanships, step up coordination in the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the G20, and advance cooperation across the Global South while promoting a more multipolar world order.

Elaborating on Wang's remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a media briefing in Beijing on Monday that, as the two leaders had charted the course for the future development of bilateral ties, China would work with India to implement the important common understandings reached between them. Guo said China would lengthen the list of cooperation, deepen people-to-people exchanges, strengthen coordination on multilateral platforms, continue efforts to improve and develop ties, and support each other's development and revitalisation. China takes over the BRICS chair for 2027.

The Chinese side presented the Modi-Xi meeting as an effort to stabilise and expand ties, with both leaders backing peace on the border, wider exchanges and closer coordination in BRICS and other multilateral forums.