Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet face to face, virtually, during the twelfth summit of the Brics group to be held on November 17 by video conference.
This will be the first virtual multilateral meeting that the two leaders will join since the border clash in Ladakh became public in May. India’s foreign and defense ministers have participated in other meetings involving their Chinese counterparts in recent weeks.
The Brics Summit will focus on further strengthening cooperation among member states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) amid the Covid-19 crisis, according to a formal announcement Monday from Russia, the current president. of the grouping. The theme of the meeting will be “Brics Association for Global Stability, Shared Security and Innovative Growth”.
In May, Russia postponed the Brics Summit, which was to have been held in St. Petersburg in conjunction with a meeting of the heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) from July 21 to 23, due to the spread of the coronavirus. disease.
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Russia was interested in hosting the leaders of the five BRIC countries, but several members expressed apprehension about holding an actual summit in view of the risk of infections, people familiar with the events said on condition of anonymity.
“Despite the current world situation due to the spread of the coronavirus infection, the activities under the Russian presidency of the Brics in 2020 are carried out consistently,” said Anton Kobyakov, adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin and secretary executive of the organizing committee. , to prepare and support the presidency of the SCO of Russia in 2019-20 and the presidency of the Brics in 2020.
“Since January 2020, more than 60 events have been organized, including through video conferencing. The Brics Summit will be the event of the crown jewel of the Russian presidency of the Brics, which will drive a further strengthening of cooperation together with our partners to ensure the well-being of the Brics countries ”, he said.
Russia has focused on multifaceted cooperation between the BRIC countries to help raise living standards and quality of life, according to the official statement.
During 2020, the five countries of the group continued their close strategic partnership on three main pillars, peace and security, economy and finance, cultural exchanges and between peoples, he added.
Russia has also helped facilitate meetings between the Indian and Chinese sides, such as the meetings of the foreign and defense ministers on the sidelines of the SCO meetings in Moscow last month.
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The meeting between Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow led to a five-point roadmap to push for disengagement and reduced escalation along the Royal Line of Control (ALC).
Former Ambassador Vishnu Prakash said the presence of the Indian and Chinese leaders at the virtual summit would be more about “keeping the show going and checking the box.”
“The summit will have more symbolism than substance. A virtual Brics summit will have the limited purpose of having leaders make statements and follow motions. During in-person summits, the real business happens on the margins. With a virtual summit, there will be no business on the sidelines. With so much tension in the relations between India and China, the possibility that the Brics summit will produce something significant, I do not see that happening, “he said.
A meeting of BRIC foreign ministers last month expressed concern about violence and conflict in different parts of the world and said such situations must be resolved peacefully through political dialogue. The joint statement issued after the virtual meeting of foreign ministers did not refer to any particular conflict, and the group has a convention not to address bilateral issues among its members.
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