“It is for our shared pursuit and for the overarching trend of peace and development that we BRICS countries have come together,” Chinese President Xi Jinping has said.
Today, the BRICS has expanded to 11 member countries and 10 partner countries, becoming a force for advancing a multipolar world and greater democracy in international relations.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi from Sept. 12 to 13, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson announced on Thursday.
Over the past two decades, BRICS has grown into a major platform for cooperation among emerging markets and developing countries, with an ever-expanding role in global affairs.
China, as a staunch supporter and active participant in BRICS, has consistently upheld the BRICS Spirit of openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation, working with its partners to turn shared aspirations into practical cooperation and advance common development.
At the upcoming summit, Xi will join other leaders in charting a new course for the high-quality development of greater BRICS cooperation, pooling the collective strength of the Global South and contributing stability and positive momentum to a world undergoing profound changes.
BUILDING STRONGER BRICS
In March 2013, Xi attended the fifth BRICS Summit in Durban, South Africa. It was his first international summit as Chinese president.
“We, the five BRICS countries, come from four different continents. The grand goal of fostering partnership for common development and the noble cause of promoting democracy in international relations and advancing peace and development of mankind have brought us together,” he said in a keynote speech at the summit.
Xi called on BRICS countries to move toward the goal of integrated markets, multi-tiered financial network, connectivity by land, air and sea, and greater cultural exchanges.
Two years later, at the seventh BRICS Summit held in Ufa, Russia, Xi called for building a partnership for world peace, common development, inter-civilization dialogue and more effective global economic governance.
When China was the BRICS chair back in 2017, Xi proposed the “BRICS Plus” cooperation model at the ninth BRICS Summit in Xiamen, calling for getting more emerging markets and developing countries involved in the group’s concerted endeavors for cooperation and mutual benefits.
In October 2024, the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, marked the first BRICS leaders’ offline summit since the group’s expansion. “It is for our shared pursuit and for the overarching trend of peace and development that we BRICS countries have come together,” Xi said in a speech at the summit.
Building on this vision, Xi proposed building a BRICS committed to peace, innovation, green development, justice and closer people-to-people exchanges.
Xi has advanced BRICS cooperation through “highly constructive proposals,” bringing more Global South countries that share a vision of a multipolar world into dialogue and practical cooperation, thereby strengthening the appeal and influence of BRICS, said Alexander Gusev, director of Russia’s Institute for Strategic Planning and Forecasting.
Today, the BRICS has expanded to 11 member countries and 10 partner countries, becoming a force for advancing a multipolar world and greater democracy in international relations.
BRICS countries account for nearly half of the world’s population, around 30 percent of the global economy and one-fifth of global trade.
“China seeks the greatest common ground for cooperation through equal dialogue, builds consensus around shared interests, and continuously strengthens the cohesion and capacity for action of BRICS cooperation,” said Mohamed Hussein, first deputy head of Egypt’s State Information Service.
BRICS is a platform with great potential while strengths and differences among its members are an asset, said Marcos Cordeiro Pires, a professor of political and economic sciences at the Sao Paulo State University.
In a world undergoing profound changes, the BRICS is amplifying the voices of Global South countries in demands for better governance, more security and the right to development, said Pires.
BRICS IN ACTION
At Xiamen Port in southeast China’s Fujian Province, a major hub for international shipping, the BRICS Go-Global Express officially kicked off in late July, providing a new bridge for Chinese companies to expand into BRICS markets abroad.
The inaugural event focused on Nigeria, which officially became a BRICS partner country last year. Hassan Mohammed, commissioner of the Trade Division at the Consulate General of Nigeria in Shanghai, said the BRICS Plus framework had created more platforms for exchanges and brought the two countries closer together.
At the 12th BRICS Summit in November 2020, Xi announced China’s plan to set up a BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution innovation center in Xiamen.
Since its establishment, the center has facilitated more than 100 cooperation projects, with a total investment of over 62 billion yuan (9.24 billion U.S. dollars). It has also launched a scholarship for emerging industries, helping BRICS countries cultivate talent across a range of fields, including industry and communications.
Delivering results has been central to the BRICS agenda. As Xi once put it, “BRICS is not a talking shop, but a task force that gets things done.”
By the end of 2025, the New Development Bank, whose establishment Xi personally championed, had approved 139 projects with total financing of about 43 billion dollars, bringing tangible benefits to people in Global South countries through green energy, transport infrastructure and access to clean drinking water.
In 2021, Xi proposed the Global Development Initiative at the general debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly. Five years on, the initiative is complementing and reinforcing the BRICS cooperation mechanism, bringing development further to the forefront of the international agenda.
China has since launched initiatives to expand BRICS cooperation in areas including deep-sea resources, the digital economy, green industries and clean energy. It has also proposed new programs in artificial intelligence and digital education.
BRICS and the Global Development Initiative have increasingly complemented and reinforced each other, said Siti Mutiah Setiawati, a lecturer at Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia.
Together, they have brought greater attention to development on the international agenda, and helped translate shared aspirations into practical outcomes for emerging markets and developing countries, she said.
ADVANCING GOVERNANCE REFORM
In September last year, Xi proposed the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) at the “Shanghai Cooperation Organization Plus” Meeting in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin.
Seven days later, when addressing a virtual BRICS Summit, Xi said the GGI “is aimed at galvanizing joint global action for a more just and equitable global governance system.”
BRICS countries are increasingly finding common ground on issues ranging from development and a more multipolar world to global governance reform. At the 2024 BRICS Summit, Xi called for building the group into “a vanguard for advancing global governance reform.”
The GGI provides an important framework for BRICS to advance global governance reform, helping strengthen the UN-centered international system and make global governance more just, equitable and representative, said B. R. Deepak, professor of Chinese and China Studies at the Centre of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
This vision has also been reflected in Xi’s calls for greater cooperation among BRICS countries. At the “BRICS Plus” leaders’ dialogue in Kazan, Russia, Xi called on BRICS countries to become the main driving force for common development, play an active and leading role in the global economic governance reform, and make development the core of international economic and trade agenda.
At the BRICS Business Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2018, Xi also called on BRICS countries to firmly support the multilateral trading regime, advance global economic governance reform and increase the representation and voice of emerging markets and developing countries.
Concrete actions have accompanied these calls on reforming major international financial institutions. BRICS countries have put forward clear positions on reforms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota system and the World Bank’s shareholding structure.
The Rio de Janeiro Declaration, adopted at the 17th BRICS Summit held last year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, stressed that further quota realignment in the IMF should increase the shares of emerging markets and developing economies.
As for the World Bank, the declaration called for “increased voice and representation of developing countries, underpinned by a shareholding realignment that corrects their historic underrepresentation.”
“The greatest contribution of BRICS over the last two decades has been its role in changing the conversation about global political governance,” said Ronney Ncwadi, professor and director of the School of Economics, Development and Tourism at Nelson Mandela University.
“BRICS has demonstrated that emerging and developing economies are no longer just recipients of global rules, but are increasingly participating in shaping those rules,” said Ncwadi. (Xinhua/GSF)