BRICS closes in New Delhi with five Chinese initiatives and a push to rally the Global South

Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled proposals on Sunday to push what he called Greater BRICS economic ties and give the bloc a larger global role, Reuters reported from New Delhi⁴. NDTV reported that Xi announced five initiatives, denounced what he termed might-makes-right logic, and promised that China will strive to establish a BRICS open-source artificial intelligence community⁷. The Hindu reported that Xi called on member states to rally the Global South, setting out a vision covering AI and smart manufacturing⁸. China’s own official summary records Xi calling on BRICS countries to strengthen unity among the Global South and play an active, stabilising role⁶.

Russia’s president framed the bloc as a driver of a fairer multipolar order⁴, and argued that BRICS now accounts for more than 40 per cent of global output, against a forecast average growth rate of 3.7 per cent for the eleven members in 2026 compared with 1.1 per cent for the Group of Seven¹. Al Jazeera’s summary puts the eleven-member bloc at 40 per cent of global GDP and notes that the declaration avoided condemning the US and Israeli war on Iran, which it read as evidence of division inside the group². An Australian Broadcasting Corporation assessment named Narendra Modi and Xi as the summit’s biggest winners, and observed that the image of the meeting was not one of Xi, Putin and Modi but of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian³. The Kremlin said Modi and Xi offered to help resolve the Russia-Ukraine war during contacts with Putin at the summit⁵.

Why it matters to investors

A bloc of that size is no longer only a diplomatic forum. The growth differential claimed at the summit, 3.7 per cent against 1.1 per cent, is the argument being made to prospective members and to capital¹. What is being built alongside it matters more: an open-source AI community and a smart manufacturing agenda are industrial policy proposals with export and standards consequences^7,8.

The limits are equally visible. A declaration that does not condemn the war in Iran, in a group that includes Iran, indicates the bloc cannot yet act as a single geopolitical actor². That gap between economic weight and political coherence is the central question for anyone pricing BRICS as an alternative system^3,6.

What to watch

The first test is whether the five initiatives acquire funding and institutions, or remain statements⁷. The open-source AI proposal is the most consequential, because it would put a standards-setting body outside the American and European orbit^7,8.

The second is the Ukraine offer. Modi and Xi positioning themselves as mediators, as the Kremlin describes, would be a substantive change in who brokers the war’s end⁵. The third is membership and cohesion: Greater BRICS implies expansion, and each new member makes a common position harder to reach^2,4.