Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to make his first visit to India in almost seven years and the first since the armies of the two sides were locked in a military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020.Xi is expected to join BRICS leader’s summit in New Delhi on September 12-13. India will be hosting the annual summit as the chair of the group.Sources said an invite had been extended to all BRICS partner countries, including China, and Xi was likely to attend it. Russian President Vladimir Putin would attend the BRICS summit, the Russian Embassy in South Africa, yesterday, wrote in a post on X, citing an aide to Putin.If Xi comes to New Delhi for the summit, it would mark his first trip to the country since October 2019.Last year in September, Modi attended the SCO summit at Tianjin, marking his visit to China in seven years. A bilateral meeting between Modi and Xi then built upon the process of normalisation that began in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024. The two sides, have since then agreed on the “Early Harvest” proposal in boundary delimitation and resumption of border trade through three points.But before the BRICS summit, Putin and XI are also expected to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on August 31 and September 1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also likely to attend the SCO summit.Relations between India and China deteriorated sharply after the border standoff that began in April-May 2020 along the LAC. The process of improving ties began after Modi and Xi met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024.During that meeting, both sides agreed to complete disengagement of troops at the LAC in eastern Ladakh. Over the past one-and-a-half years, India and China have taken several steps towards stabilising relations.These measures included the resumption of visas, direct flights, easing restrictions on Chinese companies and restarting the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage.Today in China, Liu Jinsong, DG of the Department of Asian Affairs of met with Vikram K Doraiswami, Ambassador of India to China. Spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India posted details of the meeting saying “The two sides should uphold the important consensus that China and India are cooperative partners instead of rivals, and the two countries are each other’s development opportunity instead of threat”.Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to travel to India from May 23-26 amid a looming energy crisis faced by New Delhi since the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and off-and-on sanctions on purchasing Russian crude.