BRICS summit: Stronger partnership for a brighter future

The 9th summit of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) regional grouping was held in Xiamen, China, under the theme of ‘Stronger Partnership for Brighter Future’. The member countries discussed international and regional issues of common concern, and expressed their resolve to build on their achievements already made with a shared vision for future development of BRICS. The Xiamen Declaration adopted by the consensus further stated that BRICS, since 2006, has fostered a spirit of mutual respect and understanding, equality, solidarity, openness, inclusiveness and mutually beneficial cooperation. The BRICS member countries also signed some important agreements, including Mutual Cooperation Action Agenda on Economic and Trade Cooperation, Action Plan for Innovation Cooperation, Strategic Framework of BRICS Customs Cooperation, Memorandum of Understanding between the BRICS Business Council and the New Development Bank on strategic cooperation.

In particular, one of the main aspects of the 9th BRICS summit was the unequivocal condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations by the member countries. They reaffirmed that those responsible for committing, organising, or supporting terrorist acts must be held accountable. In this connection, it was indeed a big success for India that the names of Pakistan-based terrorist organisations, including the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, among others, were mentioned in the declaration, because in the past, China repeatedly blocked India’s efforts to declare Jaish-e-Mohammad head Masood Azhar as a UN-designated terrorist. In fact, even at this summit, China was ready to include these Pakistan-based terrorist organisations. However, as all other member countries of BRICS supported India’s case to include Jaish-e-Mohammad and other terrorist organisations, China could not succeed in protecting its friend, Pakistan. The other reason for Beijing to allow the inclusion of the terrorist organisation was US President Donald Trump’s strong posturing against Pakistan and his desire to see India play an important role in the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. Certainly, the change in China’s stand on the terrorist organisations having safe havens in Pakistan could hit Beijing-Islamabad relations.

Another highlight of the BRICS summit was the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chinese President Xi Jinping. The meeting assumed huge significance in light of the fact that India and China faced the longest stand-off in recent times and both the countries ended the crisis just days before the BRICS summit. While the end of the stand-off was globally seen as a major diplomatic victory for India because China did not succeed in its endeavour of building a road in the disputed area of Doklam sector, despite having adopted a war-mongering posturing, the meeting between the two leaders was encouraging. While Modi described the meeting as “fruitful”, Xi told Modi that India can view China’s development in a correct and rational way and invoked the five principles of peaceful co-existence of the Panchsheel agreement. Jinping told Modi that the two Asian countries are development opportunities for each other and not threats. PM Modi and Xi Jinping reaffirmed that it is in the interest of both India and China to have good relations.

Truly, while BRICS’ commitment towards promoting the emergence of an equable global order has got a shot in the arm, the meeting between PM Modi and Xi Jinping was a “forward-looking approach,” and it should be hoped that both the countries will undertake more efforts to consolidate and strengthen bilateral ties.

The author is a foreign policy analyst