By: Aishwarya Dutta

On the sidelines of the 16th BRICS Summit, 2024 Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan. In their first formal bilateral meeting after half a decade, Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping on October 23, 2024 accepted the agreement for a resolution of the military stand-off at the Line of Actual Control in their joint initiative to bring Sino-Indian relations to normalcy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted the importance of properly handling the differences, disputes and disagreements between the two countries. Besides, the leaders also decided to restart dialogue mechanisms between Foreign Ministers and other officials of the two countries in order to stabilize and rebuild bilateral relations that have been virtually suspended on most of the issues.

A brief overview of the BRICS and its achievements

In its two decades of existence, the BRICS (comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group has achieved policy coordination among five very disparate countries and has started posing a serious challenge to the status quo in global governance. With the addition of five new members – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, it is now collaborating on many policy issues and delegating authority to a range of newer BRICS organizations. Throughout its first decade, BRICS has advanced new policy initiatives in the field of global economic governance. At the 2014 BRICS Summit in Brazil, the New Development Bank (NDB), and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) was launched. Since then, the NDB has approved billions of dollars in infrastructure and renewable energy financing projects in BRICS countries and received excellent long-term issuer credit ratings from respected agencies. The CRA has become an important financial stability mechanism designed to assist countries with balance of payments crises. The new institutions have stepped up to provide financial stability and respond to the needs of COVID-19. In addition, BRICS countries have also made some progress in the ‘old’ international financial institutions. For example, they negotiated a reform of the IMF quota system, which now includes Brazil, Russia, India, and China among the top ten largest shareholders. These accomplishments have demonstrated that BRICS countries’ domestic differences in political structures, development models and values can be overcome in pursuit of common, well-defined international agendas.

But BRICS lacks common organizational features such as a permanent international secretariat or a formal treaty. The presidency of BRICS usually rotates and so do the summits.  The India–China rivalry has also cast a dark shadow over the group and has been a bottleneck for BRICS institutionalization.

The trajectory of India-China relationship in the context of BRICS:

India and China’s rivalry stemmed from their national aspirations of becoming global powers. The two countries have competed in various spheres since their independence, especially for influence in the third world. China is not supportive of India’s aspirations to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has been against India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). In 1962, both the countries fought a war which has been the main reason for a more aggravated and antagonistic relation. In addition to border disputes, the two countries have also clashed over the Tibet issue and the Dalai Lama, as well as over influence and strategic space in South Asia, East Asia, and the Indian Ocean. In addition to that, China’s ‘all-weather’ strategic partnership with Pakistan has been a constant worry for India, which sees China using Pakistan as a ‘cat’s paw’ to keep India enmeshed in South Asian affairs, inhibit India’s ability to channel its energies to challenge China’s aspirations to become the pre-eminent power in the Asia-Pacific, and curtail India’s rise as a global power.

In a similar way, China did not receive India’s support for its most important international project – the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China resented India’s unwillingness not only to join BRI but also to endorse it. In its defense, India claims that its principal objection is the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), BRI’s flagship project, which passes through Kashmir and impinges on India’s territorial sovereignty. Moreover, other concerns include China’s ‘String of Pearls Strategy’ (network of commercial and military facilities extending along the sea lanes of communication in Asia and Africa) and its increasing forays in the Indian Ocean. To counter China’s rising ascendancy, India has launched initiatives such as The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) and Project Mausam.

Sino-Indian bilateral ties suffered a huge setback in 2017 during the 73-day standoff between troops from two countries in Doklam, at China–Bhutan–Indian trijunction. The standoff led to increased tensions with a potential to escalate into a nuclear war, but both India and China agreed to withdraw troops from the area. However, the incident increased mistrust between the two countries and damaged bilateral ties.

To improve bilateral ties, in 2018, Modi and Xi met informally in Wuhan, China. In the ten-hour meeting known as the Wuhan Summit, both countries agreed to improve communication and further strengthen the existing confidence building measures. The bilateral relationship received a jolt when the Modi government amended Article 370 of the Indian constitution in August 2019 and divided the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories – Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh – to be administered directly by the central/federal government in New Delhi. However, the ‘Chennai Connect’, an informal meeting between Modi and Xi in October 2019 in Mamallapuram, restored and enhanced bilateral relations. ‘Chennai Connect’ led to the formation of a high-level mechanism on trade and investment. The chief aim was to increase Chinese investments in India and bilateral trade with China, finding ways and means to increase Indian exports and market access for Indian companies in China to mitigate the trade deficit – a major Indian concern. In 2020, Xi proposed to further strengthen the bilateral relationship, including cultural exchanges and people-to-people ties to mark 70 years of the establishment of diplomatic cooperation between the two countries. Modi hailed the ‘Chennai Connect’ as ‘a new era of cooperation between the two countries and Xi invited Modi for a third summit in China in 2020. ‘Chennai Connect’ emitted the belief that increasing economic and cultural ties will strengthen bilateral ties and ease the differences from becoming disputes.

Current position of the two countries

Tensions between the two countries arose again in June 2020 because of the clashes in Galwan, which further escalated into a military standoff. Although Modi and Xi had brief encounters at the Group of 20 meeting in Bali in 2022 and again in Johannesburg in 2023, the 16th BRICS Summit marks a significant renewal of dialogue. Both the leaders emphasized on the fact that stable, predictable, and cordial bilateral relations between India and China, as two neighbors and the two largest nations on earth, will have a positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity. Besides that, it will also contribute to a multi-polar Asia and a multi-polar world.