New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday (September 12) sought to consolidate a gradual thaw in India-China ties, with Chinese President Xi Jinping saying the progress made between the two countries should be “cherished” as he returned to India for the first time since 2019.The Chinese leader landed in Delhi at noon for a visit lasting barely 24 hours, arriving to attend the BRICS summit before departing on Sunday. It was his first visit to India since the informal summit in Mamallapuram seven years ago – and his third meeting with Modi in under two years – all of them on the sidelines of multilateral meetings.The deep freeze in India-China ties had been a result of the four-year-old military stand-off at eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control, including the deadly Galwan clash in June that year. The confrontation severely strained political ties and brought much of the bilateral relationship to a standstill, with the disengagement process beginning only in October 2024 after the two sides reached an agreement on patrolling arrangements.Xi was notably absent from the cultural program arranged for the visiting leaders, as well as the gala dinner hosted by Modi.During their 40-minute-long meeting, Xi said the two countries had moved from a “starting afresh” after their Kazan meeting in October 2024 to a “making further improvements” over the past two years, pointing to the resumption of institutional exchanges, an expansion in areas of cooperation and record bilateral trade. “This situation has not come easily and needs to be cherished,” he said.As per the Indian readout, the two leaders “welcomed the steady progress in India-China bilateral relations since their last meeting in Tianjin in August 2025”.The two sides also sought to give the thaw a broader political basis, with Modi stressing that India and China should take a “strategic and long term perspective” of their relationship and that differences should not become disputes.“Prime Minister highlighted that both sides must be guided by three mutuals- mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interest,” the Ministry of External Affairs said.The border remained a central element of the Indian account of the meeting. Modi stressed that peace and tranquillity in the border areas remains an “essential basis” for the continued development of bilateral relations and underlined the need for both sides to observe existing agreements and understandings on border-related issues.The two leaders also reiterated their commitment to a “fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable” resolution of the boundary question, with the settlement to proceed “from the political perspective of their overall bilateral relations and the long-term interests of the two peoples”.The latest meeting came shortly after the 25th round of Special Representatives talks on the boundary question, held in New Delhi in August between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.At those talks, the two sides agreed to advance discussions on a framework for resolving the boundary question under the existing political parameters, while also strengthening mechanisms for managing the border. They agreed to discuss an “Early and Substantial Harvest” in the boundary negotiations and to add military-level communication channels to help address situations on the ground and prevent misunderstanding and miscalculation.The Chinese readout of Saturday’s meeting reiterated that the two sides should pursue the bilateral relationship and the boundary question “in parallel” and maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas. Xi said the two countries should use “mutual respect and mutual understanding” to remove obstacles in the relationship.Beijing, however, again stressed that the boundary issue should not be allowed to define the overall China-India relationship.However, absent from the Indian account this time was the description of the two countries as “development partners and not rivals” that had appeared at MEA’s press release after the leaders meeting at Tianjin last year.That characterisation was left to the Chinese side. Its readout quoted Xi as saying China and India were “partners rather than rivals” and that each other’s development represented “an opportunity rather than a threat.” Xi described this as a “strategic judgment made based on the development stage and international environment of the two countries”, which is a sign that the Chinese leader would want New Delhi to adjust its worldview.According to the Chinese readout, Modi also said India was willing to be a partner with China rather than an opponent and to regard each other’s development as an opportunity rather than a challenge.The economic relationship was also central to Xi’s call for the two sides to “address each other’s economic and trade concerns in a balanced way”. While the Chinese readout did not specify those concerns, the Indian side has identified them as the trade imbalance and supply chain issues.India’s imports from China have far exceeded its exports, producing a goods trade deficit of more than US$100 billion, even as bilateral trade has crossed US$150 billion.In August 2025, the Indian readout said Modi had noted that India and China both pursued strategic autonomy and that their relations should not be seen through a third country lens. That formulation is absent from Saturday’s Indian account.The Chinese foreign ministry instead quoted Modi as saying that India follows an independent foreign policy and that the development of India-China relations is not influenced by third parties. Modi, according to Beijing’s account, said India was willing to maintain high-level exchanges with China, strengthen strategic communication, promote mutually beneficial cooperation and expand people-to-people exchanges.Beijing has long perceived India’s ties with the United States as a factor shaping New Delhi’s approach to China, a perception that has repeatedly irritated India.The Chinese readout also attributed to Modi a reiteration of India’s existing position on Taiwan and Tibet. It said Modi stated that India’s policy and position on “issues relating to Taiwan and Tibet” had not changed and that India would not allow any force to “engage in anti-China activities on its territory”.These points do not appear in the Indian government’s readout of the meeting.The reference to Taiwan and Tibet is significant against the backdrop of a recurring difference between the Indian and Chinese accounts of bilateral meetings.In July this year, after a Wang Yi-Jaishankar meeting in Manila, the Chinese readout quoted Jaishankar as saying India’s position on “Taiwan and Xizang remains unchanged”, while also saying India respected China’s sovereignty. The MEA pushed back, saying India had consistently respected China’s sovereignty but that it was China that had violated India’s territorial integrity, including through its occupation of Indian territory and projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.This followed a sharper disagreement in August 2025, when a Chinese readout of a Wang-Jaishankar meeting said Jaishankar had stated that “Taiwan is part of China”. The MEA subsequently said there was “no change in our position on Taiwan” and that India’s ties with Taiwan were focused on economic, technological and cultural cooperation. India last explicitly endorsed the “one-China policy” in a bilateral joint statement in 2008.