Discuss the significance of high-level bilateral visits in normalising India-China relations post-Galwan. Illustrate with recent developments.

The 2020 Galwan clash froze leader-level exchanges between India and China. Normalisation since has been driven almost entirely from the top — through meetings on multilateral margins — making President Xi Jinping's forthcoming visit to New Delhi for the BRICS Summit, his first to India in nearly seven years, a significant marker of re-engagement [5].

Why high-level visits matter in normalisation

• Political unlocking of stalled machinery: at Kazan (October 2024) the leaders welcomed the border disengagement agreement and mandated the Special Representatives to meet early — a directive lower-level talks had not achieved for four years [1].
• Strategic direction to economic ties: at Tianjin (August 2025) both sides agreed to proceed "from a political and strategic direction" to expand trade and investment and reduce the trade deficit [2].
• Restoring people-to-people links: the same meeting pushed direct flights, visa facilitation and the resumed Kailash Manasarovar Yatra [2].
• Narrative reset: the leaders' framing of the two countries as "development partners, not rivals" shapes bureaucratic and public expectations on both sides [2].
• Institutional precedent: the informal-summit format — Wuhan (2018) and Mamallapuram's "Chennai Connect" (2019) — showed that leader-level contact can insulate ties from episodic friction [3].

Recent developments illustrating the trend

• Kazan, 16th BRICS Summit (2024): first structured bilateral engagement post-Galwan [1].
• Tianjin, 25th SCO Summit (2025): PM Modi's first visit to China in seven years, with a substantive bilateral [2][4].
• New Delhi BRICS Summit (2026): Xi travels to India with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao; a parallel Goyal–Wentao track is expected on Chinese export controls and India's investment restrictions [5].

Yet visits set direction, not settlement — the boundary question, de-escalation of troops and the trade asymmetry remain open. Their value lies in converting political goodwill into institutionalised mechanisms. If the New Delhi visit is used to firm up the Special Representatives' process, resume regular dialogues and diversify trade, it can move ties from fragile stabilisation towards durable, interest-based normalisation.