The 18th BRICS Summit opened in New Delhi with Xi Jinping's first India visit in seven years, as eleven member states weighed war, sanctions and their push for a post-Western order.
Chinese President Xi Jinping touched down in New Delhi on Saturday for the 18th BRICS Summit, his first trip to India in seven years, as leaders of the eleven-nation bloc gathered to confront a global order shaken by war, sanctions and deepening friction with the West.
India is hosting the two-day summit on September 12 and 13 as the group's 2026 chair, the fourth time New Delhi has led BRICS. The gathering carries the theme "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability."
The stakes reach well beyond ceremony. BRICS now spans Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates, with ten partner nations waiting at the door. Together the group claims a voice for the developing world that it says the existing international system has long denied.
Xi's arrival marks a measured thaw between the world's two most populous nations. Relations collapsed after a deadly 2020 border clash in the Galwan Valley, and the two sides have spent years managing a frozen frontier without resolving it.
Modi met Xi on the summit's sidelines and delivered a direct message: peace along the disputed border remains the foundation for any real improvement in ties. The two leaders also took up trade and investment, signaling that economics may be the bridge neither side can afford to burn.
Indian commentators branded the encounter a "duet of dragon and elephant," a nod to the scale of what is at stake when two nuclear-armed powers share a contested frontier and a combined market of nearly three billion people.
The summit's formal agenda reflects a turbulent year. The meeting convenes against the backdrop of an American and Israeli campaign against Iran, Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine, and a global economy still straining under higher prices and fractured supply chains.
In their joint language, BRICS leaders rejected what they called unilateral sanctions and condemned violations of Lebanese sovereignty, calling for an Israeli withdrawal and diplomatic solutions to the region's crises. The wording echoes the bloc's long-running argument that economic coercion and outside intervention destabilize the developing world.
For Moscow and Tehran, both under heavy Western sanctions, the summit offers a platform to argue that alternative trade and payment channels are not merely possible but necessary. India's own balancing act is on full display: it buys discounted Russian oil, trades heavily with the West, and now chairs a group built to challenge Western primacy.
BRICS has grown fast, but growth has blurred its purpose. The original members once shared little beyond sheer size. The expanded roster now includes countries with rival interests, from Saudi Arabia to Iran, and economies at very different stages of development.
Talk of a common BRICS currency has cooled as reality has set in. Members use different monetary systems, hold different reserves and trade in different patterns, and a shared currency would demand a level of political trust the bloc has never demonstrated.
What BRICS does offer is convening power and a megaphone. For Washington, that is a pressure point rather than a mortal threat. The United States remains the world's largest single economy, the anchor of global finance and the guarantor of the security architecture that the bloc's own members quietly depend on. President Donald Trump's tariff offensive and his push to rebuild American industrial strength have only sharpened the debate inside the group about how much they truly need the system they criticize.
The summit's real outcome will be measured in the months after the flags come down. Watch the final joint declaration, which will show how far members are willing to go in naming the West as a problem rather than simply championing a multipolar future.
Watch, too, whether the Xi-Modi thaw produces anything durable on the border, or whether it remains a photo opportunity that buys both sides time. Trade talks, visa rules and military confidence-building measures will be the tests that matter.
And watch the partner countries. If BRICS can convert a growing waiting list into concrete deals on energy, finance and technology, the bloc will keep expanding its gravitational pull. If it cannot, the group risks becoming what its critics already call it: a talking shop that punches well below its weight.
The 18th BRICS Summit opened in New Delhi with Xi Jinping's first India visit in seven years, as eleven member states weighed war, sanctions and their push for a post-Western order.
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