India is set to host the summit on September 12 and 13. Xi’s potential attendance is expected to draw attention not only to the BRICS agenda but also to what it could indicate about efforts by Beijing and New Delhi to stabilise relations following deadly border clashes in 2020.
“Chinese officials are busy finalising hotels and security protocols,” one Indian source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China for the first time in seven years, but relations between the two countries have improved only gradually. More recently, a new border-related dispute led to sharp diplomatic exchanges between the two sides.
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Two other Indian sources said Xi was likely to travel with a delegation of around 400 officials, compared with fewer than 200 officials who accompanied him during his previous visit in 2019.
Officials from both countries are expected to use the summit to explore ways to expand engagement while managing longstanding differences over their border and regional security issues, the sources said.
Xi’s final travel plans and the agenda for any potential bilateral meeting between India and China have yet to be finalised, according to the sources.
China’s Foreign Ministry said that “China attaches great importance to and actively participates in BRICS cooperation, and supports India, the current chair, in successfully hosting this year’s BRICS summit.”
The ministry added that it currently had no information available to provide regarding Xi’s potential visit. Xi did not attend the previous BRICS summit, held in Brazil in 2025.
The world’s two most populous countries, both of them nuclear powers, share a roughly 3,800-km (2,400-mile) border in the Himalayas that is largely undemarcated and disputed.
Decades of relative peace along the border were disrupted by clashes in 2020, in which 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed. The incident led to a four-year military standoff before the two sides reached a disengagement agreement in October 2024.
However, on August 12, India said maintaining peace along the border was critical to bilateral relations following reports that Indian and Chinese army patrols had come face-to-face in late July near a remote section of the border.
India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval began a visit to Beijing on Monday to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for talks on the boundary issue.
Although India and China remain strategic competitors, US President Donald Trump’s trade policies have created an area of convergence between them. Xi’s potential attendance at the summit could therefore signal that neither side wants external pressure to undermine cooperation within BRICS.
