The India-China Paradox At The Heart Of BRICS

India hosted the 18th BRICS+ leaders’ summit in New Delhi from 12 to 13 September. It concluded with a consensus declaration, a more symbolic outcome that largely shied away from contentious issues such as a common currency and naming the US over its unilateral tariffs on BRICS+ members. Nevertheless, the document was an achievement in itself, given the internal differences between member states such as Iran and the UAE, and China and India.

This outcome shows the overall geopolitical context. The protracted war between Iran and the United States and its economic and geopolitical fallout are additional factors shaping member states’ calculations in the short term. Moreover, China’s Xi Jinping visited India after a seven-year gap amid both countries’ efforts to reset ties. Xi’s bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated the general tone of their relationship over the last couple of years while indicating that substantive differences remain over the overall premise of their relationship. Particularly, their readouts differed on the place of border tensions in the overall relationship.

Xi’s visit to India underlines China’s domestic considerations and the necessity to signal the viability of BRICS+ as a counterweight in China’s geopolitical strategy against the US, rather than China’s deepening trust with India. Therefore, underneath the friendly gestures during the summit lies an uncomfortable reality: the trust between India and China cannot be bridged anymore. This was visible in broader commentaries on India-China relations before and during the summit, including from those considered closer to the Indian government.

For more than a decade, China has indicated that it intends to use BRICS+ as a geopolitical lever. Like any other power, there is no surprise that China wants to turn the group into a geopolitical tool in its strategy. However, it raises questions about what India’s approach to BRICS+ should be at a time when global geopolitics is increasingly shaped by US-China relations and the widening gap in economic and military strength between India and China. By empowering BRICS+, is India aiding China’s rise, given that the latter’s economic strength is greater than that of all the other members of the group combined?

For Indian policymakers, the answer lies in muddling through the geopolitical shift. Its economic capabilities and geopolitical influence do not provide enough heft to ensure that BRICS+ will not endorse Chinese positions. At the same time, American uncertainty and the unfulfilled objective of reforming international institutions require platforms like BRICS+ to collectively amplify its demands for better representation at the global level.

BRICS+ In Search For A New Identity

Compared with today, BRICS+ emerged in a completely different geopolitical context of the post-Cold War period, in which China, India and Russia used it to balance against the US. At its core, their cooperation was driven by the objective of reforming international institutions with greater representation for the developing world. Over time, with the economic rise of India, China and other developing countries, it increasingly became a platform for economic cooperation.

In the last decade, BRICS+ has been undergoing shifts in its role and identity as a group. Two interrelated factors have caused these changes.

First, China has aggressively pursued reorienting the role of the group beyond economic cooperation and its function as a forum for promoting reforms of international institutions. It wants BRICS+ to play a bigger role in geopolitical issues, which also means aligning with its position on key issues. Since 2015, its advocacy for BRICS+ expansion has underlined its desire to use it as a lever in its geopolitical competition with the US. While decision-making within the group relies on consensus, China’s economic strength and consequent geopolitical influence give it an advantage in the group.

Second, the geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape within which BRICS+ is evolving has changed. The US-China rivalry is a defining factor in this shift.

Despite the changed geopolitical conditions of the last decade, BRICS+ remains a useful platform to voice the still-unresolved issues of reforming international institutions and promoting economic cooperation. However, in these pursuits, it plays a more symbolic role than a substantive one. For example, the group has been ineffective and divided in responding even when its member states have been affected, such as in the case of the US-Israel combined attack on Iran.

Here lies the core tension. To be an effective platform, it must change its identity and role from a “non-Western, but not anti-Western” group towards a more geopolitical role. It cannot achieve its core aim—reform of international institutions—without playing a geopolitical role in which it must confront the US on certain issues, such as the attack on Iran. However, due to internal contradictions—diverging geopolitical goals of member states at regional and global levels, as well as bilateral relations—a shift in its role also indicates that the powerful member, China, will use it as a platform for its narrow geopolitical interests.

As a result, BRICS+ is divided between the choice of staying on course as a group of emerging market economies and taking on new additional geopolitical roles. This tension defines the politics within the group.

India’s Strategy

For India, China’s ambition to use BRICS+ in its geopolitical strategy poses a real challenge. Despite China’s friendly gestures during the Delhi Summit, the structural dynamics—India-China economic disparity and US-China competition—will prevent both countries from finding common ground on key issues with geopolitical significance, such as a common currency and whether BRICS+ should speak up on geopolitical issues.

Adding to that, China’s view of India as a partner at the global level has also decisively shifted towards greater suspicion. In the first decade of the 21st century, China considered India a useful partner at the international level through platforms such as BRICS+. In the last decade, India has increasingly been seen as an obstacle rather than a partner in BRICS+.

Therefore, the short-term friendly gestures by China are more of a tactical manoeuvre by Beijing to manage the differences for the time being before it can neutralise India within the group. India has rightly underlined that the group is not against anyone, meaning it is not anti-Western. India should continue to resist the change in the geopolitical role and identity of the group.

An empowered BRICS+ with a geopolitical role in key global issues will serve China more than India due to the former’s economic strength and geopolitical influence. At the same time, BRICS+ remains a useful diplomatic platform to continue raising unrealised demands for greater representation of developing countries in international institutions such as the United Nations Security Council. In that scenario, India’s strategy should just be muddling through—neither helping expand the group’s geopolitical role nor sabotaging it.