Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first formal talks in five years on Wednesday, signalling that ties between the Asian giants damaged by a deadly military clash in 2020 had begun to recover.

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.

A meeting between the two leaders would come just two days after they settled a tense border dispute in the Himalayas.