Gurjit Singh | BRICS at 20: A Win for India Which Faces China Test Next

The 18th Brics Summit, marking its 20th anniversary in New Delhi, concluded with a communique more significant than earlier declarations. When doubts were raised about whether an expanded and increasingly diverse Brics could function effectively, India demonstrated that the grouping can still manage contradictions and attain consensus. The New Delhi Declaration (NDD) is an important diplomatic achievement for India.

The original Bric grouping is now a heterogeneous forum. The 11 members include large economies, energy suppliers, Western-sanctioned countries, US associates and those seeking different geopolitical strategies. Together they account for about half of the world’s population, 40 per cent of global GDP and 26 per cent of global trade. Except they were not an integrated whole.

The question before New Delhi was if such a diverse group could attain relevance without being paralysed by their contradictions. The answer was cautiously affirmative.

Managing contradictions rather than eliminating them: A notable success was reaching a consensus document despite Brics’ contradictions within. Iran and the UAE hold different positions on regional security and competing interests. Russia and Iran attract US sanctions. Washington increasingly sees China as a strategic rival. Several Brics members keep close engagement with the United States. So, the expanded Brics cannot be perceived merely as an anti-American group. Nor can it be viewed as a nascent alternative to the West.

This was perhaps the core perception manifest in the NDD. Its text criticised unilateral sanctions and tariff and non-tariff barriers, while carefully evading text that would ask members to choose sides on every crisis. This was not weakness but the modus operandi of a plural Brics.

The achievement mattered because the 2023 expansion brought in members that had not shared the institutional experience or political spirit of the original Brics. The New Development Bank, for example, was created by the original members and represented a particular conception of development cooperation. The new Brics has broader expectations about what it could become.

Indian diplomacy succeeded because it did not seek to erase differences; it created enough commonality for rivals to coexist.

Brics and the consolidation of the Global South: A significant outcome in New Delhi is less about Brics becoming a stronger geopolitical force and more about its growth into an avenue for consolidating the Global South.

India provided the summit a fuller Global South character. Instead of inviting an individual country as guest, it invited regional organisations into the deliberations. This aligned with India’s effort to make Brics more representative of developing-country aspirations, rather than another forum for great-power rivalry.

The NDD emphasises larger participation for emerging markets and developing countries in global decision-making platforms, including the United Nations, its Security Council and the Bretton Woods institutions. It seeks a more representative and reformed multilateral system, not a replacement with a Chinese model. India’s Brics approach differs from the visions of some other major members.

For China, Brics provides an important vehicle to advance its vision of a transformed global order and greater Chinese economic and technological leadership. Xi Jinping’s proposals at the summit for deeper cooperation in trade, AI, digital industries, manufacturing and finance make clear that Beijing sees an opportunity to use “Greater Brics” to extend economic integration and China’s influence. For Russia and Iran, Brics offers diplomatic space to resist isolation and challenge the excessive use of Western sanctions and pressure.

For most of the wider Global South, Brics has a more pragmatic attraction. It offers countries an opportunity to enlarge their strategic space without choosing between Washington and Beijing, or between a G-2 and a G-3 domination of major powers. That may ultimately prove to be Brics’ most durable purpose.

The declaration’s careful silences are significant. An important feature of the New Delhi Declaration is what it left unsaid.

The document criticised unilateral sanctions and expressed concern about trade restrictions, but avoided turning the summit into an explicit indictment of the United States. Similarly, while sympathy existed for Russia and Iran, the wider membership was not prepared to endorse an unconditional defence of their policies. This reflects a broader Global South calculation.

Countries may oppose sanctions against Russia and Iran because sanctions disrupt energy, food and financial markets. But they also want Russia’s war in Ukraine to end. They may sympathise with Iran’s position but simultaneously worry about energy and seafarers’ security and regional instability. They object to Western tariffs and unilateralism, but many have experienced the economic consequences of dependence on China.

Thus, the criticism embedded in the Brics position can be read in more than one manner. The absence of named countries gives Brics diplomatic flexibility.

China’s chairmanship will be the real test: The most difficult phase for Brics may now begin. China assumes the chairmanship after India, and Mr Xi’s five-point vision at the closing session (greater economic integration, cooperation in AI, trade, digital technology and manufacturing) signals Beijing’s ambitions. This also creates the central dilemma.

Many developing countries want more trade with China, Chinese investment and access to technology. They know that excessive economic dependence can hollow out domestic manufacturing, create trade imbalances and increase vulnerability to supply-chain disruptions.

The same caution applies to AI. Cooperation in AI and digital technologies is attractive, but countries of the Global South will want technological partnerships rather than technological dependence.

This is why the Brics Continuity and Implementation Mechanism proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the summit. His proposal for a Brics “Troika” involving the previous, current and incoming chairs could provide continuity across presidencies. His suggestion of a digital repository recording decisions, responsibilities and implementation timelines could similarly prevent each new chair from simply resetting the agenda. For a grouping without a permanent secretariat, such mechanisms are particularly valuable.

India’s real Brics legacy: India’s fourth Brics chairmanship has achieved something more important than simply keeping the organisation together. It has redefined cohesion. The summit also showed that Brics is neither an anti-Western alliance nor presently a Chinese-led alternative to the existing order.

China will inevitably seek to shape Brics according to its own ambitions. Russia and Iran will continue to use it to resist Western pressure. Other members will seek economic opportunities and strategic autonomy. These competing purposes will remain. That is why India’s emphasis on continuity matters.

Brics has survived its first 20 years because it has learned to manage contradictions. Its next 20 years will depend on whether it can prevent any one member from defining those contradictions, or its future, on its own terms.

The New Delhi Summit has given Brics a new centre of gravity: not confrontation between great powers, but greater agency for the Global South. Preserving that balance when China takes over the chairmanship will be the real test of India’s diplomatic legacy.