The last few days have seen many major diplomatic events involving China, and the next few weeks promise to bring even more meetings and summits — including one in India.
First, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in Beijing in late August for the 25th round of talks between Special Representatives (SRs) on the boundary issue. An 8-point consensus was later reached, including a commitment to advancing negotiations on a framework for the settlement of the boundary question.
Then, Prime Minister and Chinese President Xi Jinping both visited Kyrgyzstan’s Bishkek for the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit earlier this week.
Finally, the upcoming BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit will be held in New Delhi from September 11 to 13. It will mark Xi’s first visit to India since 2019.
Here is a closer look at these developments.
1. Special Representative talks
“Special Representatives” was established as a mechanism to explore the framework of the boundary settlement in 2003, during then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to China. Since then, periodic meetings have been held.
Among the significant terms mentioned in the latest meeting’s press release was achieving “an early and substantial harvest” of boundary delimitation and border management. The term has no technical definition, but is generally understood to mean that before the settlement of the larger boundary dispute as a whole, the status of some portions can be first agreed upon mutually.
Manoj Kewalramani, the Chairperson of the Geostrategy Programme at the Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru, also noted one notable difference in the official Indian and Chinese readouts: “Delhi wants dialogue on trans-boundary rivers, but Beijing does not seem to have moved on that at all. In fact, Chinese readouts don’t even acknowledge the issue.”
UPSHOT: The talks follow a longer period of attempts at normalising relations after the low of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) standoff in 2020. For long, the border issue has remained a core component of how India chooses to conduct its ties with China, while China has often advocated for concurrently developing other aspects of the relationship, including trade.
Historically, too, the boundary question has been central to how India has viewed China. In a rapidly changing world, as both countries seek to deepen their ties for mutual benefit, how they approach this sensitive question will only assume greater importance.
You can read more about the readouts, the context of the talks and the road ahead in two expert-written explainers we published here and here.
2. Modi and Xi at SCO
The SCO meeting marked 25 years of the organisation, which was established amid concerns of rising security challenges in Asia.
Its founding members were China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan joined in 2017, Iran in 2023, and Belarus is the newest member, having joined in 2024.
At the latest meeting, members adopted the “Bishkek Declaration”, which mentioned commitments to combating terrorism and expressed concerns about the war between US-Israel and Iran.
UPSHOT: Alongside groupings like BRICS, SCO has at times been seen as a forum that could serve as an alternative to West-led institutions. But unlike many Western groupings, SCO has had a comparatively narrower domain (that of security threats) and faced a lack of cohesion among members.
For instance, the latest declaration condemned terrorism, and PM Modi said that “Countries that use terrorism as an instrument of state policy and provide shelter and support to terrorists must be sent a strong message: terrorism cannot be a strategic asset for anyone.” This remark was likely aimed at Pakistan, which continues to enjoy a strong relationship with China.
Xi, in turn, said in his speech that “China takes the SCO as a priority area for promoting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation”. India is opposed to the BRI on account of it passing through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and on grounds of sovereignty. Bilateral differences have thus played a large role in limiting the growth of the SCO.
You can read an expert-written explainer on the SCO summit’s highlights and why it matters to India here.
3. BRICS summit in New Delhi
The BRICS summit will see Xi visit India after several developments — the LAC standoff, the Covid-19 pandemic, the US-China tariff war, and so on. It also comes weeks before Xi will undertake his first official visit to the United States under the Second Trump Administration.
UPSHOT: Given the low points in ties in the aftermath of the 2019 summit between Modi and Xi in Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu, one perspective is that a brief high-level meeting can only have limited impact in aiding bilateral relations.
However, this meeting will also come after both sides have made regular attempts to improve cooperation since 2024, on issues ranging from resuming visa services and direct flights to the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra. They could create conditions that allow for deeper engagement incrementally.
Ahead of a Xi-Trump summit, coming at a time when the US’ relations with much of the world have been affected following the tariffs saga, countries have greater incentive to also turn to alternatives. Whether BRICS nations make such an attempt, and the share India and China will have within that, is what will be of interest.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, wave as they board a plane at the end of their visit to Cairo, Egypt, Sept. 2. (Egyptian Presidential Press Office via AP) 
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