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BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 13th BRICS summit on Thursday (today) in Beijing via video link, at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the announcement yesterday.
BRICS is the acronym for an emerging-market bloc that groups Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Agencies add, Leaders of BRICS countries will meet virtually on Thursday chaired by India, with Chinese analysts predicting Afghanistan and relevant topics could top the agenda, as it closely concerns three member states. Yet they believe New Delhi’s attempt to retrieve its losses and regain a say on this topic will be in vain, due to its past strategy on Afghanistan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 13th BRICS summit on Thursday via video link in Beijing at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced Wednesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will also attend the summit.
The theme of the summit will be “Intra-BRICS cooperation for continuity, consolidation and consensus,” and India outlined areas of priority including counter-terrorism, using digital and technological tools for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) and enhancing people-to-people exchanges.
The situation in Afghanistan and the pandemic will be on the agenda, India media cited its foreign ministry as saying.
As the Afghanistan situation evolves with the Taliban announcing an interim government on Tuesday, experts predicted the leaders’ meeting will be focused on this topic.
The Afghan issue will also be on the agenda as “three of the BRICS countries, China, Russia and India, are Afghan neighbors and key regional countries,” Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University.
China and Russia have been communicating closely on the Afghan issue, and Xi and Putin had a phone conversation in late August to enhance bilateral coordination on the topic.
