The BRICS summit starts on Saturday, Sep. 12, when the full BRICS members meet, followed Sunday by the BRICS-Plus Summit, bringing together the 21 full member and partner nations which make up this group of diverse nations, with all their sometimes-grave differences, nonetheless committed to working together for their mutual development. The BRICS countries represent 50% of the world’s population, 40% of global GDP, and more than 25% of global trade, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the host of this year’s summit, told the BRICS Business Forum in New Delhi today, reportedly the biggest gathering yet of business leaders from the BRICS nations.
Consider the diversity of the nations represented: In addition to host Modi of India, the heads of state/government of the nations of Burundi, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam will be attending; the Vice Presidents or PM’s of Nigeria, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan; and the Foreign Ministers of Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay. Note that the representatives of Iran and Cuba, two governments the Trump administration has labeled pariah states to be razed from the Earth, received the same warm welcome from the Indian hosts extended to all.
Much bilateral diplomacy is taking place around the summit. Modi already met separately on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (reported separately).
The Foreign Ministries of India and China are arranging when Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet on the sidelines of the Delhi summit, after Xi arrives on Saturday–a meeting which has British geopoliticians tied into knots over what the Financial Times labeled the “World’s Biggest Relationship, if Xi and Modi succeed in rebuilding ties between their 2.8 billion people. The only thing worse than that in the British mind would be a trilateral Putin-Xi-Trump meeting at the November APEC meeting in China, a possibility mooted a few days ago by Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov. British news agency Reuters questioned Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning whether this was, indeed, a possibility. She responded only that she did “not have any information to provide.”
Notably, just shy of two weeks ago, Modi had already held bilateral meetings with Putin, Xi and Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, providing for more substantive meetings this time around.
Conflicts are expected, however, at the BRICS meeting itself. In addition to differences over needed new monetary arrangements to ensure economic development, despite U.S. unilateral sanctions, geopolitical conflicts are causing problems. According to news reports, no joint statement was issued from the BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting in May, because of differences over the Trump-Israel war against Iran.
Asked today by India’s PTI news agency to speak to China’s expectations for the meeting, given the conflicts in the Middle East and between Ukraine and Russia, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao responded that China is “committed to promoting the political settlement of hotspot issues through dialogue. We look forward to working with fellow BRICS countries to promote dialogue and negotiation to resolve differences and jointly safeguard regional and global peace and stability.”