NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met Wednesday on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia, in their first bilateral meeting in five years.
The meeting came days after the two giant neighbors announced a border accord aimed at ending a four-year-old standoff involving tens of thousands of their soldiers in mountainous Ladakh, India's foreign ministry said.
Xi and Modi shook hands against a backdrop featuring their national flags, and both stressed the importance of handling their disputes.
The Chinese leader said the two countries were at a crucial stage of development and "should carefully handle differences and disagreements and facilitate each other's pursuit of development aspirations."
"It’s important for both sides to shoulder our international responsibilities, set an example for boosting the strength and unity of the developing countries, and contribute to promoting multi-polarization and democracy in international relations,” Xi said.
"The two leaders affirmed that stable, predictable, and amicable bilateral relations between India and China, as two neighbors and the two largest nations on earth, will have a positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity," India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters after the meeting.
India announced on Monday that the two countries agreed to a pact on the resumption of military patrols along their disputed border in the Himalayas after a standoff that began with a deadly clash in 2020.
China confirmed the agreement a day later, saying the two sides had reached resolutions related to their border.
“China will work with India to implement these resolutions properly,” Lin Jian, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said Tuesday.
Misri said the border accord should certainly ease the situation along the disputed territory.
The two leaders last met for a summit in southern India in October 2019, months before the army face-off started on their disputed border. The pair has not held any formal bilateral meetings since. Chinese President Xi did not attend the G-20 summit of leading economies and developing countries, which India hosted in New Delhi last year.
Ties between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese. That turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.
Misri said the pact would lead to the “disengagement” of troops at the Line of Actual Control, the long Himalayan border shared by the two Asian giants. Misri did not specify whether it means the withdrawal of the tens of thousands of additional troops stationed by the two countries along their disputed border in the northern Ladakh region after their armies clashed in 2020.
Both India and China have withdrawn troops from face-off sites on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan Valley, but they continued to maintain extra troops at Demchok and Depsang Plains.
The two sides have deployed troops in the forward areas of Ladakh for a fifth consecutive winter in freezing temperatures.
The Line of Actual Control separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety. India and China fought a deadly war over the border in 1962.
The army standoff damaged business ties between the two nations with halted investments from Chinese firms and major projects banned. India also banned Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok, which is operated by Chinese internet firm Bytedance. It cited privacy concerns that it said threatened India’s sovereignty and security.
Chinese products are ubiquitous in India, from toys to smartphones to made-in-China Hindu idols. According to Indian government data, two-way trade grew from $3 billion in 2000 to $95 billion in 2018, with the balance strongly favoring China.
In 2022, India's trade with China increased by 8.47% yearly to reach $136.26 billion.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, third left,Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, attend the BRICS Summit narrow format session in Kazan, Russia, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Alexander Nemenov, Pool Photo via AP)
From left, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a family photo ceremony prior to the BRICS Summit plenary session in Kazan, Russia, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends the BRICS Summit narrow format session in Kazan, Russia, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Alexander Nemenov, Pool Photo via AP)
From left, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a family photo ceremony prior to the BRICS Summit plenary session in Kazan, Russia, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are courting key constituencies just two weeks before Election Day — and they’re hoping popular public figures will help them make the case.
Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Here’s the latest:
Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff is warning that the Republican presidential nominee meets the definition of a fascist and that while in office, Trump suggested that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler “did some good things.”
The comments from John Kelly, the retired Marine general who worked for Trump in the White House from 2017 to 2019, came in interviews with both The New York Times and The Atlantic. They build on a a growing series of warnings from former top Trump officials as the election enters its final weeks.
Kelly has long been critical of Trump and previously accused him of calling veterans killed in combat “suckers” and “losers.” Still, his new warnings came just two weeks before Election Day, as Trump seeks a second term vowing to dramatically expand his use of the military at home and suggesting he would use force to go after Americans he considers “enemies from within.”
“He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,’” Kelly recalled to The Times. Kelly said he would usually quash the conversation by saying “nothing (Hitler) did, you could argue, was good,” but that Trump would occasionally bring up the topic again.
In his interview with The Atlantic, Kelly recalled that when Trump raised the idea of needing “German generals,” Kelly would ask if he meant “Bismarck’s generals,” referring to Otto von Bismarck, the former chancellor of the German Reich who oversaw the unification of Germany. “Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals,” Kelly recalled asking Trump. To which the former president responded, “Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.”
Trump’s campaign denied these stories Tuesday, with Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, arguing Kelly has “beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated.”
▶ Read more about John Kelly’s claims
Conservatives already have a supermajority on the Supreme Court as a result of Donald Trump’s presidency. If Trump wins a second term, the right side of the court could retain control for several more decades.
Justices Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74, are the two oldest members of the court. Either, or both, could consider stepping down knowing Trump, a Republican, would nominate replacements who might be three decades younger.
“With President Trump and a Republican Senate, we could have a generation of conservative justices on the bench in the Supreme Court,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, recently wrote on X.
That’s exactly what worries Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive group Stand Up America. “The real key here is Trump prevention. If Trump wins again, he could solidify right-wing control of the Supreme Court for decades,” Harvey said.
Yet the nation’s highest court has a lower profile than it did in the past two presidential campaigns. That’s despite an early summer ruling on presidential immunity that insured Trump would not have to stand trial before the Nov. 5 election on charges of interference in the 2020 election and other consequential decisions on abortion, guns, affirmative action and the environment.
▶ Read more about the Supreme Court
In battleground Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris warned that democracy and reproductive rights were at stake as she campaigned alongside a former Republican congresswoman.
Going to the same state the day before, Donald Trump served French fries at a closed McDonald’s.
As the 2024 presidential contest speeds to its conclusion on Nov. 5, Harris and Trump are embracing wildly different strategies to energize the coalitions they need to win. Both are making bets that will prove prescient or ill-advised.
Trump’s team has largely abandoned traditional efforts to broaden his message to target moderate voters, focusing instead on energizing his base of fiery partisans and turning out low-propensity voters — especially young men of all races — with tough talk and events aimed at getting attention online.
Harris is leaning into a more traditional all-of-the-above playbook targeting the narrow slice of undecided voters that remain, especially moderates, college-educated suburbanites, and women of all races and education. More than Trump, she’s going after Republican women who may have supported rival Nikki Haley in this year’s GOP primary and are dissatisfied with the former president.
▶ Read more about the candidates’ campaign strategies
A man accused of repeatedly threatening to kill the top elections officials in Colorado and Arizona as well as judges and federal law enforcement agents is expected to plead guilty in federal court Wednesday.
Teak Ty Brockbank, 45, of Cortez, Colorado, has been jailed since his Aug. 23 arrest. Now he’s scheduled to appear in court for a change of plea hearing after previously pleading not guilty to one count of making interstate threats. His lawyer notified the court that Brockbank wanted to change his plea. In federal court, “guilty” is the only other option.
According to a detention motion, Brockbank told investigators he’s not a “vigilante” and that he hoped his posts would simply “wake people up.”
Investigators say Brockbank began to express the view that violence against public officials was necessary in late 2021 and proceeded to make multiple threats against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, now the state’s governor, and the others.
▶ Read more about the threats against officials
Trump said the Biden administration needs to find out who leaked classified documents detailing Israel’s plans for a potential retaliatory attack on Iran, implying there are “methods” that could be used to learn who was responsible.
“It’s a terrible situation,” Trump said in an interview with radio talk show host Mark Levin. “You’ve got to find out the person that did it.”
Trump said it is easy to find the leakers, “but we don’t use methods anymore where you can do that. We give the criminals such latitude. We are not allowed to find them.”
The former president also criticized the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“I thought the leaks from the Supreme Court was just a shame,” he said. “I think that’s something that also should be found out.”
A statement Tuesday night on Trump’s website announced an official complaint had been filed with the Federal Election Commission against the Labour Party and the Harris-Walz campaign for “illegal foreign campaign contributions and interference in our elections.”
The complaint referred to media reports about meetings between Labour and Democrat officials, and a now-deleted LinkedIn post in which a Labour staffer said there were “nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the U.S. in the next few weeks” to swing states.
Starmer said any party members in the U.S. were there as volunteers.
“That’s what they’ve done in previous elections, is what they’re doing in this election,” he told reporters as he traveled to Samoa for a meeting of Commonwealth leaders.
Starmer said the kerfuffle would not jeopardize the relationship he’s tried to build with Trump.
“I spent time in New York with President Trump, had dinner with him, and my purpose in doing that was to make sure that between the two of us we established a good relationship, which we did, and I was very grateful to him for making the time,” he said.
This combination of file photos shows Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, speaking at a campaign rally, Oct. 18, 2024, in Detroit, and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, speaking at a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wis., Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump waves at a campaign rally at Greensboro Coliseum, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The Latest: Trump rallies in North Carolina while Harris makes the cable news rounds
The Latest: Trump rallies in North Carolina while Harris makes the cable news rounds
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., attend a campaign event Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Brookfield, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
