New Delhi: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to hold their first bilateral meeting in five years on Wednesday, marking a potential thaw in relations between the two countries. The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, hosted by President Vladimir Putin, following a recent agreement on their contested border.

According to Indian officials, this will be the first formal face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since their last talks in Mahabalipuram, India, in 2019. Relations soured after deadly clashes in 2020 along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, which left 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead.

In the years since, both nations have pulled back troops and agreed not to send patrols into a contested strip along the LAC. India recently announced that an agreement on patrolling arrangements had been reached, easing the military standoff.

The upcoming meeting follows brief encounters between Modi and Xi at the G20 summit in Indonesia in 2022 and in Johannesburg in 2023. However, India has maintained that full normalization of ties depends on restoring the pre-2020 status quo at their border.

Amid tensions, India has restricted Chinese investments in critical sectors, banned several Chinese apps, and strengthened its partnerships with the US-led Quad alliance, which includes Australia and Japan. Meanwhile, China is expected to push for the restoration of economic ties and greater access to India's rapidly growing market.