For the first time, Xi is missing a China-backed BRICS summit. Why?
CNN —
A summit of leaders from the BRICS group of major emerging economies kicks off in Brazil Sunday – but without the top leader of its most powerful member.
For the first time in more than one decade of rule, Chinese leader Xi Jinping – who has made BRICS a centerpiece of his push to reshape the global balance of power – will not attend the annual leaders' gathering.
Xi's absence from the two-day summit in Rio de Janeiro comes at a critical moment for BRICS, which owes its acronym to early members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and since 2024 has expanded to include Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran.
Some members are up against a July 9 deadline to negotiate US tariffs set to be imposed by US President Donald Trump, and all face the global economic uncertainty brought on by his upending of American trade relations – putting the club under more pressure show solidarity.
Xi's absence means the Chinese leader is missing a key opportunity to showcase China as a stable alternative leader to the US. That's an image Beijing has long looked to project to the Global South, and one recently elevated by Trump's shift to an 'America First' policy and the US decision last month to join Israel in bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.
But the Chinese leader's decision not to attend – sending his No. 2 official Li Qiang instead – doesn't mean Beijing has downgraded the significance it places on BRICS, observers say, or that it's less important to Beijing's bid to build out groups to counterbalance Western power.
China's Premier Li Qiang waves during a visit to Jakarta, Indonesia, in May.
Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images/File
'(BRICS) is part and parcel of Beijing's effort to make sure it isn't hemmed in by the US allies,' said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore.
But that pressure may have lessened with Trump in office, Chong added, referencing the US president's shake-up of relations even with key partners, and for Xi, BRICS may just not be 'his greatest priority' as he focuses on steering China's domestic economy. Beijing may also have low expectations for major breakthroughs at this year's summit, he said.
BRICS attendance sheet
Xi is not the only head of state expected to be absent in Rio.
The Chinese leader's closest ally in the group, Russia's Vladimir Putin, will only attend via video link, for the same reason he also joined a 2023 BRICS gathering in South Africa remotely. Brazil, like South Africa, is a signatory to the International Criminal Court and so would be obligated to arrest Putin on a court charge alleging war crimes in Ukraine.
The absence of two global heavy hitters leaves ample limelight for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will visit Brazil both for the summit and a state visit. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is also expected to attend.
Some new club members have yet to announce their plans, though Indonesia's Prabowo Subianto is expected in Rio after Southeast Asia's largest economy officially joined BRICS earlier this year. BRICS partner countries, including some who aspire to join the group, will also send delegations. Uncertainty remains over whether Saudi Arabia has accepted an invitation to become a full member.
The sting of Xi's absence for Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may be blunted by the fact that the Chinese leader visited Brazil in November for the G20 summit and a state visit, when he and Lula inked a raft of cooperation agreements. The Brazilian leader also visited China in May, after attending a military parade in Moscow alongside Xi.
That recent diplomacy, low expectations for major breakthroughs at this year's summit, and a heightened focus on domestic issues all likely factored into Xi's decision to send Li, a trusted second-in-command, observers say.
China is facing steep economic challenges in the face of trade frictions with the US – and its leaders are busy charting a course for the five years ahead of a key political conclave expected this year.
In Rio, Li will likely be charged with advancing priorities like shoring up energy ties between Beijing and BRICS' major oil-exporting members, while pushing for the expanded use of China's offshore and digital currency for trade within the group, according to Brian Wong, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong, who added that Xi's absence shouldn't be interpreted as a snub to BRICS.
'Whether it be the Sino-Russian partnership or Beijing's desire to project its purported leadership of the Global South, there is much in BRICS+ that resonates with Xi's foreign policy worldview,' said Wong, using a term for the extended group.
De-dollarization?
Launched in 2009 as an economic coalition of Brazil, Russia, India and China before South Africa joined a year later, BRICS roughly positions itself as the Global South's answer to the Group of Seven (G7) major developed economies.
It's taken on greater significance as countries have increasingly pushed for a 'multipolar world' where power is more distributed – and as Beijing and Moscow have looked to bolster their international clout alongside deepening tensions with the West.
But BRICS' composition – a mix of countries with vastly different political and economic systems, and with occasional friction between each other – and its recent expansion have also drawn criticism as leaving the group too unwieldy to be effective.
Officials, including Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, attend the at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024.
Maxim Shemetov/Pool/AFP/Getty Images/File
The disparate group's efforts to speak with one voice distinct from that of the West often become mired in opposing views. A statement last month expressed 'grave concern' over the military strikes against BRICS member Iran, but stopped short of specifically naming the US or Israel, the two countries that carried out the strikes.
Nonetheless, the US will be watching how the countries talk about one issue that has typically united them: moving their trade and finance to national currencies – and away from the dollar. Such de-dollarization is particularly attractive to member countries such as Russia and Iran, which are heavily sanctioned by the US.
Earlier this year, among the goals of Brazil's host term, Lula included 'increasing payment options' to reduce 'vulnerabilities and costs.' Russia last year pushed for the development of a unique cross-border payments system, when it hosted the club.
What's unlikely to be on the negotiating table, however, is the lofty goal of a 'BRICS currency' – an idea suggested by Lula in 2023 that has drawn ire from Trump even as other BRICS leaders have not signaled it's a group priority.
The US president in January threatened to place '100% tariffs' on 'seemingly hostile' BRICS countries if they supported a BRICS currency, or backed another currency to replace 'the mighty U.S. Dollar.'
As countries convene in Rio, observers will be tracking how strident their leaders are in promoting the use of national currencies at a meeting of a group where China is the leading member, but US global economic clout still looms large.
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All of this is happening in a context where the country is becoming even more securitized. As you probably know, there's been several executions of people accused of working for the Mossad, just in these few days since the war came to an end. There are targeted attacks on Afghans. I think, if I'm not mistaken, there are about five million Afghans in Iran, and they are quickly identified as possible fifth columnists. Kurds are also going to get targeted under the cover of war and national security concerns. This is yet another example of the most vulnerable being hurt by war. Now there's a lot of evidence that Israel did penetrate Iran and ultimately dominate its airspace. And some of the drone attacks originated from within the country. But the penetration was not simply limited to Iranian society, it clearly extended into the Iranian government and even the security apparatus itself. Remember how Ismail Haneya, the Hamas leader, was assassinated a year ago in the middle of Tehran. MM: Do you see signs of weakening within the regime, changes within the deep power structures of the Revolutionary Guards or the Supreme Leader, or will they find a modality for survival, including by increasing securitization? AK: It's really hard to predict. If we take one step back and consider the Women, Life, Freedom movement in 2022, these past three years have brought seismic transformation and challenges to the Islamic Republic. In a sense, you have this popular protest that caught them off guard. In many ways, it was defeated — it did not overthrow the regime — but it was victorious in that it forced the state to transform its relationship with women, youth, and the cultural sphere. It had to make cultural compromises. And then there is the collapse of the basic logic of the regime's two-decade deterrence policy since October 7. The idea that Iran was going to support a set of regional allies, such as Hezbollah and the Assad regime, to protect the homeland has been destroyed in the past year. That whole logic of deterrence is destroyed, and Iran has been exposed to threat. We are in a fluid and unpredictable moment. It's not just this 12-day war — everything that has happened in the past three years inside Iran and, of course, regionally, has made the political leadership vulnerable. And this could lead to a greater concentration of power and greater repression, likely in the short-term. I don't like to predict, but the Islamic Republic has never been that well organized and centralized. It has never had a lasting ruling party, the Islamic Republican Party only lasted a few years, and factionalism keeps reemerging, even in a tightly controlled political spectrum. So, I have a hard time believing that the military, security, or even the clerical establishment, which is now a shell of what it once was, has the tools to unify political opinion and impose itself on the polity. Unfortunately, many people are going to be thrown in prison, their lives overturned, but I don't think that repression will hold beyond the immediate moment. It might work for a few months, but not more. That's why I use the word reckoning. At some point, there has to be a recognition that this model of governance, playing the international and domestic off of each other, is not sustainable. Not economically, not militarily, and I doubt in terms of forging a social base. There are many political activists who are mobilized and ready to protest at every turn, from union and women's groups leaders and environmental activists to pensioners and teachers. Iran's population is becoming quite old, and inflation has hit pensioners quite hard, so their movement is quite strong as well. Pensioners, nurses, teachers, farmers, and other practitioners are focused on social welfare and job security demands that the government has been unwilling or unable to fulfill because of mismanagement and international sanctions. Bringing all of this political energy together has been the challenge of the past 15 years. While it does come together at certain moments, as we have seen time and again over the past ten years, it is very difficult to keep it together and prevent it from splintering. This is what is needed to make the political opposition sustainable. For those who care about Iran, the question now is, how do we strengthen these social forces? This war actually hurts our colleagues in unions, organizations, and civil society, who have been doing a lot of work over the past 20 years. They are the ones who get hurt, and that's why we should oppose the war, whether it's in Iran, Sudan, or Palestine. MM: And to go back 10 years, to what seemed like a moment of reformist politics, with the election of Hassan Rouhani in 2013 and the nuclear deal in 2015, do you see any relevance of that period in today's dynamics? AK: Unfortunately, there's been a kind of break with the reformist moment of the first decade of the 2000s. The pro-democracy movement needs to be reconstituted — it's not enough to invoke Mohamed Khatami, Hassan Rouhani, or others. That no longer resonates with many people who neither remember those years or don't see them as a success. There are some figures, many of them in prison, who if freed by the regime could help bring a broader constituency under a common umbrella. But because of that threat, those in power will hesitate to do so, even at this critical moment. If I am correct that there will be a moment of reckoning, then people can demand that Iran reaches a national reconciliation. At various moments over the past couple decades, that demand has come up. It came up during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. So maybe, in this particularly dramatic moment, political leadership could be pushed in that direction. Khamenei is aging and needs support in preparing the regime for new challenges. Much of the old leadership that he has around him have been killed, or embarrassed and sidelined. So maybe this is a moment when he can be convinced that regime-society relations need to be reconstituted and that he needs to create a new social base to strengthen Iran. I don't have much hope or anything concrete to point to. But there is a language of national reconciliation that could be revitalized at this particular moment, as Iranians are rethinking what independence and sovereignty mean. MM: And finally, if we re-stage Iran within its Gulf context, what are you seeing in terms of the relationship Iran is trying to preserve with its Gulf neighbors? AK: This is very significant. Iran has had a kind of working diplomatic relationship with Oman and Qatar for a long time, and to some extent with Kuwait. But importantly, two years ago, Iran also established working diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. I can't even imagine what the war in Palestine would have looked like without this rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, reached with the help of Iraq and China. The communications and strategic dialogue have probably helped reduce some of the conflicts in the region, including in Syria and Yemen, to be specific, over the past two years. During the Israeli-Iranian war, many people in the United States expected Iran to bomb the oil fields in the Gulf or close the Strait of Hormuz. I thought that was unlikely, not only because it would be bad for Iran's economy and for the rest of the region, but also because in recent years Iran has been trying to align itself more closely with Gulf interests to meet its own needs and confront Israel and the US. If you look at the UAE's statement around the sixth or seventh day of the war, it was explicitly critical of Israel and called for an end to the attacks on Iran. So, I think there is a sort of realignment that's gradually taking shape. It also sent a signal to Iran's Arab neighbors that it was able to exercise restraint, or wouldn't fall into the trap — Israel would have loved for Iran to attack the UAE or Saudi Arabia to escalate the conflict and draw the US in more quickly. At the geopolitical level, when the Abraham Accords were signed four years ago, the underlying logic was that Israel and its military would protect Bahrain, the UAE, and maybe even Saudi Arabia from Iran. But now, if I'm sitting in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi or Manama, I'd have to ask: who's going to protect us from Israel, which in the past year has bombed an increasing number of countries? So, I would think that one of the lessons that some Gulf Cooperation Council states might take from this war is that normalization with Israel doesn't guarantee regional security or increased economic investment. If we want to be optimistic, on a regional scale, maybe what this moment reveals is that regional politics and security need to be taken into consideration. Broad regional cooperation is necessary, not a luxury. Our lives are interdependent, not just in terms of war and peace, but also when it comes to the environment, migration, and infrastructure. We need to think in terms of regional politics, not solely national politics.
