Signs of thawing ties a day after the leaders of India and China met are unlikely to deter New Delhi's plans to back tariffs on steel as they are not country-specific measures, a senior government official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

A meeting between the two leaders comes just two days after they settled a tense border dispute in the Himalayas. But experts said their long-term geopolitical rivalry would persist.

The first bilateral meeting between the leaders in half a decade takes place on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia