Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar attended the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) foreign ministers’ meeting in Washington on 1 July, just days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to attend the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro on 6–7 July. While this demonstrates the agility of New Delhi’s foreign policy, it also highlights the challenges it faces in maintaining strategic autonomy in an increasingly unstable and fragmented international system.
A voice of the Global South
The leaders of China and Russia, two BRICS founding members, are due to miss this week’s summit. One the one hand, this suggests a potentially lower-profile meeting. On the other, it could facilitate a summit that is more aligned with India’s values and worldview – and where it has a greater voice.
India and Brazil both see BRICS primarily as an economic rather than a geopolitical grouping (unlike China and Russia). While all BRICS members want to facilitate economic development and expand the voice of emerging economies in key rule-making institutions, they have different views on how to achieve this.
For example, BRICS members have voiced concerns about the weaponization of the US dollar following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but they disagree on how to address this issue. While India supports the settlement of bilateral trade within BRICS in their national currencies, it is not a strong advocate of the emerging de-dollarization narrative and discussions about replacing a US dollar-denominated international system with one based on the Chinese renminbi. India has also been somewhat lukewarm about BRICS expansion, believing it could dilute its voice withing the grouping.
India fears that China is using BRICS to expand its global influence and promote its own worldview, particularly in the context of the Chinese government’s global initiatives on development, security and civilization. Relations between the two countries have improved following a border agreement in October 2024. But Chinese President Xi Jinping’s absence from the Rio summit is a missed opportunity for a face-to-face meeting between Modi and Xi, which would have helped to fuel their nascent rapprochement.
