Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping declared India and China “partners, not rivals” at a rare face-to-face meeting on Wednesday, a carefully staged show of cooperation that sidestepped the countries’ most combustible dispute: the tense Himalayan border.
The encounter took place against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which have soured India’s relations with the US and upended the global order. “The timing isn’t accidental,” said one analyst who asked not to be named. “Delhi wants to show it has options, even as ties with Washington fray. Beijing, meanwhile, is eager to showcase its convening power.”
The two leaders met in the Chinese port city of Tianjin on the eve of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, where more than 20 world leaders, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif, have gathered.
Their statements struck a conciliatory tone five years after the bloody Galwan Valley clash left relations in free fall. But the declarations revealed familiar divisions. Beijing urged that the boundary dispute should not “define” ties, while New Delhi insisted peace along the frontier was “essential” for bilateral progress.
Analysts cautioned against seeing the encounter as a breakthrough. “This isn’t a genuine thaw — it’s tactical,” said Manoj Kewalramani of the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore. “But if there were to be a longer-term reset, it would begin with something like this.”
A power-packed lineup, including Modi, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif, have gathered for the summit in Tianjin, 120km from Beijing, for the SCO summit. In the group photo, Modi and Sharif stood conspicuously far apart. Also present were Nepal’s K.P. Sharma Oli, Myanmar’s Min Aung Hlaing and Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu.
The meeting on the sidelines between Modi and Xi was part of a broader push by both sides to cool tensions since the deadly Himalayan border clash.
Michael Kugelman, of the Asia Pacific Foundation, said Modi’s visit was not simply a reaction to frictions with the United States but the “culmination of nearly a year-long effort by Delhi to ease tensions with China, an effort whose urgency has grown as US-India struggles have sharpened.”
India has been hit by new US tariffs of 50 per cent, though China avoided any mention of Washington in its statement. The anonymous analyst added: “It suits both sides to de-link the relationship from Washington.”
The Chinese readout of the meeting called for the two sides to realise that they are “partners and not rivals, development opportunities for each other and not threats.” The Indian readout echoed this language, saying that the two leaders “reaffirmed that the two countries were development partners and not rivals."
The statements from both sides also talked about the need to maintain “peace and tranquillity in the border areas”. But the Chinese view was that one must “not let the border issue define the overall China-India relationship.”
The Indian readout, on the other hand, said: “Prime Minister underlined the importance of peace and tranquillity on the border areas for continued development of bilateral relations."
The analyst, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “There’s clear daylight between these two points of view, and one must not underestimate how deeply this difference fuels political mistrust.”
Jaishankar absent, win for China
India’s national security advisor, Ajit Doval, and foreign secretary Vikram Misri attended the talks, as foreign minister S. Jaishankar remained in New Delhi where he was said to be undergoing a minor surgical procedure.
Differences were also visible in how the two countries positioned themselves globally. China spoke of “jointly promoting a multipolar world,” while India cast itself as a driver of both a “multipolar world and a multipolar Asia.”
For Beijing, the summit is already a diplomatic win, showcasing its convening power with leaders from Central Asia and Moscow’s allies, including Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko and the leaders of Turkey and Egypt alongside Central Asian states.
It was the biggest gathering in the group’s history. China is pairing the summit with a military parade in Beijing marking the end of World War II. The optics of the meeting are key with Xi seeking to project Beijing as an alternative power base
Whatever the bilateral politics, economics remains a powerful bond between India and China. India imported $126 billion in Chinese goods last year, nearly $47 billion of it electronics.
Lithium-ion batteries and fertilisers are also critical imports. Delhi has sought to narrow the trade gap by boosting exports, but the imbalance underscores how China remains essential to India’s growth even as mistrust over the border simmers.
The Chinese statement called on the two sides to “focus on development as their greatest common denominator”, noted the analyst who wanted to remain anonymous. The Indian statement didn’t use the same words, but did say that “they recognised the role of their two economies to stabilise world trade” and that they needed to expand bilateral trade and investment ties.
“This is New Delhi telling Beijing that it is keen to play ball on economic issues, particularly given the current global circumstances,” the analyst said.