Modi and Xi trade pride for profit in a cold BRICS reset
By Alma Cordero · Reporting from El Paso ·
The red carpet in New Delhi this week is laid over a graveyard.
The red carpet in New Delhi this week is laid over a graveyard. When Narendra Modi welcomed Xi Jinping to the 18th BRICS summit on September 12, the cameras captured the smiles and the handshakes of two men attempting a "reset." But for those of us who have spent our lives watching the security state turn living borders into battlefields, the choreography is familiar. We are told this is about "peace and tranquility," but the ledger tells a different story.
This isn't a sudden bloom of friendship; it is a cold, hard calculation. This is the "Visit of Richard Nixon to China" for the twenty-first century. Just as Nixon didn't fly to Beijing in 1972 because he’d developed a fondness for Mao, but to gain leverage over the Soviets, Modi and Xi are pivoting now because the cost of hostility has finally outweighed the profit of the grudge. They aren't shaking hands because they’ve found "mutual respect"—they’re shaking hands because the world is shifting, and they can't afford to be the ones left standing alone in the cold.
The Blood in the Ladakh Cold
It is easy for the men in the Bharat Mandapam to speak of "strategic and long-term perspectives" when they aren't the ones freezing in a trench. As The Korea Herald reminds us, the 2020 military clash in the Ladakh cold desert left 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers dead. For years, tens of thousands of personnel, backed by tanks and fighter jets, have stared each other down in that wasteland.
I know that kind of theater. I saw it in 1993 when Operation Blockade turned the Rio Grande into a wall of bumper-to-bumper Border Patrol trucks, treating my father’s crew like an invading army instead of the laborers they were. When the state decides a border is a security problem rather than a place where people live and work, the people at the bottom are the ones who bleed.
Modi and Xi have played this game before. They tried to build a personal rapport at the Mamallapuram Summit in 2019, and they flirted with engagement during the BRICS summit 2014. But the 2020 clash proved that "rapport" is a thin veil. The only reason we are seeing a thaw now is that the desmadre of a disruptive US presidency under Donald Trump has made "strategic hedging" almost impossible for Delhi. India is trying to be non-western without being explicitly anti-western, a tightrope walk that is exhausting and expensive.
The Ledger is the Only Truth
If you want to know why the red carpet is out, stop listening to the diplomats and look at the money. CNBC reports that total trade between India and China hit $151.1 billion in the year ending March 2026. Yes, India is nursing a massive trade deficit of $112.16 billion, but you don't burn bridges with the person who owns your supply chain.
The "New Delhi Declaration" calls for "maximum restraint" and "diplomacy," but the real action is in the fine print: the resumption of direct flights, the opening of old Silk Road trade routes, and India relaxing investment rules for Beijing in March 2026. This is the shared economy asserting itself over the security state.
The most capable advocates for this "reset" will tell you that the 25th round of talks in August 2026, which produced "eight points of outcomes and consensus," proves a genuine shift in spirit. They will argue that the "three mutuals"—respect, sensitivity, and interest—are now the guiding light. But that is a fairy tale for the press gallery. You don't go from a 1962 war and a 2020 bloodbath to "mutual respect" in a few months of meetings. You do it because the trade imbalance is a structural ache that needs a bandage, and because the BRICS bloc—now expanded to ten members including Iran and Saudi Arabia—needs to look like a viable alternative to the G7.
The Price of the Pivot
Make no mistake: the friction hasn't vanished; it's just been budgeted. India still opposes China’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative. The distrust is baked into the soil. We saw this during the 2023 BRICS summit and again in 2024, where the forum served as a neutral waiting room for leaders who couldn't stand to be in the same room without a multilateral excuse.
What happens next is predictable. We will see a phased withdrawal of troops from Ladakh, not because the border is "solved," but because maintaining those positions is a drain on the treasury. India will continue to fight the Belt and Road Initiative while simultaneously letting more Chinese capital into its markets to stabilize its own economy.
The 2027 BRICS summit in China will be the real test, but the result is already written. This isn't a peace treaty; it's a business merger. The leaders have decided that the profit of trade is more valuable than the pride of the patrol. They have learned what we in the borderlands have always known: the fence is a political tool, but the money is the only thing that actually moves.