The 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi attracted the attention of many experts and analysts. The Belarusian Institute for Strategic Research was no exception. Analysis of diverse assessments allowed to draw the following conclusions.
From the point of view of generally accepted parameters, the summit was considered a success. Leaders’ participation was at a high level. The final declaration of 140 articles, which was adopted unanimously, was comprehensive, geopolitically balanced, and can be considered an achievement of Indian diplomacy.
For India, the chairmanship in BRICS was a continuation of its multi-alignment policy. It was highly appreciated — the group was able to be directed towards practical sectoral cooperation. The country has demonstrated the BRICS ability to overcome differences, reach consensus and achieve results on controversial issues.
The discussions highlighted India’s rejection of attempts to present BRICS as a counterweight or alternative to the West. BRICS began as a geo-economic idea and was not intended as an anti-Western alliance, even though geopolitics gradually transformed it into something more. The strategic equation now looks somehow like this: BRICS plus G20 — not BRICS versus G20 — equals reforms at the UN and Bretton Woods financial system. Seven of the eleven BRICS members are also members of the Group of 20, so the intersection of interests is real.
India’s consistent position is that the world is much more complex than just black and white, it stays out of binary division. New Delhi does not like being forced to choose sides, as the West often does. The BRICS summit in New Delhi (as well as the SCO summit in Bishkek) highlighted India’s shift towards Eurasian engagement. This contrasts with the recent situation and underlines its long-standing commitment to the principle of strategic balance.
A significant effect of the summit was the further unfreezing of relations between India and China. Xi Jinping’s mere presence in New Delhi, his first visit to India in seven years, was significant in itself. Indeed, the political implications of their meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi were much broader.
This does not mean that differences have been overcome. China and India will continue to compete for markets, technology, political influence and strategic interests. The issue of the border also has not disappeared. Perhaps something more fundamental is changing: the hypothesis that competition turns two countries into systemic strategic adversaries. History often begins to change thanks to new political formulas, and “partners, not rivals” is one of them.
China’s (and Russia’s) support for India’s “aspirations to play a larger role” in the UN Security Council is no small achievement. China also indirectly condemned last year’s attack in Jammu and Kashmir, although without mentioning Pakistan and cross-border terrorism. The active search by Beijing and New Delhi for their place in the peace process regarding Ukraine at the summit creates additional opportunities for the subsequent normalisation of relations.
The future of BRICS will continue to be marked by diversity, competition and controversy. However, these are not structural faults. Perhaps it is amorphousness and flexibility that allows a group to reach consensus in conditions of conflict. The bloc’s strength lies in its ability to find areas of common interest despite political and economic differences. BRICS is increasingly becoming a tool for diversifying global influence, although it is not yet an alternative security architecture.
The “BRICS Spirit” based on mutual respect, sovereign equality and consensus captures the transition from conceptual guidelines to the operationalisation of the agenda: to specific mechanisms of financing, trade and technological sovereignty. The focus of BRICS is not only on traditional security issues and reform of global institutions with the central role of the UN, but also on the practical architecture of cooperation: payments in national currencies, cross-border payments, private-public partnership mechanisms designed to reduce dependence on Western financial structures.
The humanitarian and social contours of the agenda are noticeably expanding from food and energy security to traditional medicine and digital connectivity. Particular attention was paid to the prevention of conflicts through eliminating their causes, political and diplomatic tools for resolving crises, and expanding cooperation with partner countries in the logic of inclusiveness and continuity of chairmanships.
The financial track is one of the most dynamically developing in BRICS. Cooperation is moving from declarations to specific mechanisms and institutional directions. The key effect is to create an alternative settlement infrastructure that reduces the need to use the dollar. De-dollarization will occur not so much through the abandonment of the dollar, but through a reduction in the need to use it at all. The BRICS Pay system can become one of the tools for such a transition.
The new development bank gives the group an institutional economic dimension, and discussions about cross-border payments and alternatives to over-reliance on current financial infrastructure reflect broader concerns about sustainability. India’s chairmanship put these issues at the centre of the summit agenda. Digital payments, central bank digital currencies and digital public infrastructure offer opportunities to reduce transaction costs and simplify cross-border economic interactions.
In the field of supply chains, the need to move from simply providing access to creating added value has been identified. Cooperation in the field of critical minerals, joint ventures and the development of advanced processing of raw materials will help the BRICS countries form more sustainable and integrated economic ties.
The future of BRICS will ultimately depend less on the number of members and more on the ability to convert political rhetoric into institutional action. The bloc’s credibility will be assessed not by the number of declarations adopted but by whether they generate institutions and resources.
It seems that India’s diplomatic legacy in BRICS will be assessed more by the percentage of the preservation of initiatives and their development into specific projects during subsequent presidencies, as well as by minimising the pressure on geo-economic cooperation due to geopolitical fragmentation. Indian initiatives to create a BRICS “group of three” with the participation of the previous, current and future chairmen, as well as a digital repository recording decisions, responsibilities and deadlines for their implementation, could ensure effective continuity in the work of the association. That is why consistency, a step-by-step approach and patience are the most viable strategies.
For the Republic of Belarus, as a partner country, BRICS, despite internal disagreements and competing interests, remains a useful instrument of multilateral diplomacy and also creates greater opportunities for the diversification of trade and economic ties.
