BRICS Summit: PM Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping to come face-to-face for first time since border standoff

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will come face-to-face for the very first time since the India-China border standoff in Eastern Ladakh at the virtual BRICS Summit on November 17, 2020. 

The current chair of the BRICS bloc, Russia announced on October 5, 2020 that the annual summit will be held on November 17 through video conference. The BRICS bloc comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

BRICS is an influential bloc that represents over 3.6 billion people, about half of the world's population. The BRICS nations have a combined GDP of about USD 16.6 trillion.

Will PM Modi and Xi Jinping interact during the BRICS Summit?

While it is confirmed that PM Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will come face-to-face at the BRICS Summit, there is no confirmation whether the two leaders will be holding a bilateral interaction on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit. So far, both Prime Minister Modi and President Xi have attended all BRICS meetings in the last few years.

Why is this significant?

• The BRICS Summit 2020 comes as India and China are locked in a bitter border standoff in eastern Ladakh since early May, which has significantly strained the ties between the two nations. Both the nations have held a series of diplomatic and military talks to resolve the issue. 

• While there has been no breakthrough yet between the two countries over the LAC standoff, there have been no provocative actions also since September 10, when a five-point consensus was reached upon for taking forward dis-engagement and de-escalation along LAC after the meeting between Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow on the sidelines of the SCO Foreign Ministers meeting in Moscow, Russia.

• Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had also met his Chinese counterpart after the latter requested for a bilateral meet on the sidelines of the SCO Defence Ministers meeting in Moscow, Russia.  

BRICS Summit-Objective

The BRICS Summit is expected to provide an impetus for further strengthening cooperation between the BRICS nations to ensure the well-being of BRICS countries. 

Key Highlights 

• The BRICS Summit 2020 will focus on further strengthening cooperation among the member states -Brazil Russia, India, China and South Africa -amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

• According to an official statement from the Russian Government, Russia is focused to promote multifaceted cooperation between the BRICS countries to contribute to raising living standards and quality of life.

• The Russian statement also said that this year the five countries have continued close strategic partnerships on all the three major pillars: peace and security, economy and finance, cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

• Russia has played a huge role in facilitating the meetings between Indian and Chinese defence and foreign ministers on the sidelines of the SCO Meetings in Moscow in September 2020. 

Background

Russia had earlier in May, postponed that the BRICS Summit, which was to have been held in St Petersburg along with a meeting of the heads of the state council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) during July 21-23, due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This time as well, though Russia was keen on hosting the leaders of the five BRICS countries but several members expressed apprehensions about holding an actual summit in view of the risk of infections.

Russia is the chair of the BRICS bloc for the year 2020 and despite the current global situation due to the spread of the coronavirus infection, the activities under the Russian BRICS chairmanship in 2020 have been carried out in a consistent manner. This was stated by Anton Kobyakov, adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin and executive secretary of the organising committee.

The BRICS Summit 2019 had taken place in Brazilia, the capital city of Brazil. PM Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit.