China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India met officially for the first time in more than five years on Wednesday at a summit of emerging market countries in Russia, setting the stage for a potential thaw between the two Asian powers.
The session came two days after China and India reached a deal on patrolling their shared Himalayan border, the site of a deadly clash between Chinese and Indian forces in 2020. Relations between Beijing and New Delhi have been frosty ever since, with India drawing closer to the United States through a regional security grouping called the Quad.
Mr. Xi and Mr. Modi are attending the 16th annual BRICS summit, a group of non-Western countries whose acronym stems from its earliest members: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It expanded this year to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, growing to represent almost half the world’s population.
Established as a counterweight to U.S.-led forums like the Group of 7 and intended to give developing countries more influence, BRICS has struggled to speak with a unified voice. That, in no small part, is because of the competing interests of its two biggest members.
