From September 12 to 13, the 18th BRICS Summit has been successfully held in New Delhi. This year’s event also marks the 20th anniversary of BRICS cooperation. The 20-year journey has been commemorated by a special photo exhibition and marked by BRICS leaders planting Banyan tree saplings at Bharat Mandapam. In both Chinese and Indian cultures, the Banyan tree symbolizes resilience, strength, longevity, and unity. During the summit, Chinese President Xi used three key phrases to summarize the BRICS development over the past 20 years: self-reliance and self-strengthening, standing together through wind and rain, and fruitful achievements.
Indeed, in the past two decades, BRICS has been growing with strong vigor and vitality, and become the most influential cooperation platform for emerging markets, developing countries, and the Global South at large. In his speech, President Xi encourages BRICS family to be a pioneer in four aspects: Advancing innovation-driven development, upholding peace and stability, facilitating mutual learning between civilizations, and reforming and improving global governance. To boost global growth with modern technology, he proposed the open source and inclusive AI initiative, the digital industry cooperation initiative, and the intelligent manufacturing cooperation initiative, and announced multiple practical BRICS cooperation measures, such as establishing AI open source community, digital ecosystem cloud platform, and youth exchange program. Through these efforts, Global South countries are expected to improve capacity and benefit from emerging and cutting-edge technologies so as to thrive together.
This Summit also provides a platform for President Xi and Prime Minister Modi’s third meeting in the past three years, in which the two leaders reaffirmed the growth of China-India ties after guiding the bilateral relations from starting afresh in Kazan in 2024 to making further improvement in Tianjin in 2025. The core idea is that China and India should be partners and opportunities to each other. Both sides should calibrate the direction with an objective and rational strategic perception, learn from each other, and support each other to succeed. Both sides should work together to remove irritants with the political wisdom of mutual respect and mutual understanding, and strengthen friendly exchanges and mutually beneficial cooperation, to improve public perception of the bilateral relations. With combined population close to 35% of the world’s total and economic size of 28% following the purchasing power, China and India should focus on development, the biggest common denominator, and contribute to a better world with open and inclusive multilateral coordination.
In New Delhi, both sides have agreed to support each other in chairing BRICS, promote cooperation in the Global South, and serve as forces for progress and stability in the volatile world. As our leaders have charted the course for future development of bilateral bonds, we should join efforts to implement their important common understandings and consensus, make the list of cooperation longer, and deepen people-to-people exchanges in various fields.
Beijing will take over the BRICS chairship next year, and host the 19th BRICS Summit. The Chinese side will build consensus and work with all parties to plan for the future. Together, we will usher in the third golden decade of BRICS cooperation, and open up a bright prospect of shared prosperity and progress.
Qin Jie is Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Mumbai
