Who speaks for the developing world: President Xi Jinping of China or Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India?
That is the question that will hang over a sprawling convention hall in New Delhi this weekend as leaders of nearly a dozen emerging-market countries convene for the annual BRICS summit.
They are gathering as wars, high energy prices, President Trump’s tariffs and concerns about artificial intelligence are unsettling the world and forcing countries to reconsider how closely they want to align with Washington and its preferred partners or Beijing.
The BRICS grouping, which is named after five of its earliest members — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — was conceived as a counterweight to the West and to U.S.-dominated forums like the Group of 7.
But since its inception in 2009, the bloc has been pulled in opposing directions by the ambitions of the world’s two biggest developing countries.
China has sought to expand the membership of the group to weaken American power. India by contrast has been more cautious about the group’s growth, and views it instead as a bridge between the West and the developing world.
That divergence in visions is personified by Mr. Xi and Mr. Modi, the most powerful Chinese and Indian leaders in generations.
A Thaw, With Limits
Mr. Xi’s attendance at the summit will be his first visit to India in seven years, an important signal after ties hit a low in 2020.
That year, Indian and Chinese forces fought a deadly battle in a disputed border region. Direct flights were suspended and both sides expelled the other’s journalists. India banned Chinese apps like TikTok and froze Chinese investment, while Beijing accelerated its fortifications and settlements along its border with India.
The two leaders initiated a thaw in 2024, at a BRICS summit in Russia. They have since been driven closer by shared grievances over President Trump, particularly his tariffs and disruption of global trade.
Mr. Xi’s effort to repair ties with Mr. Modi is motivated in part by concern that continued tensions could push India closer to Washington and deepen its involvement in the Quad, the security group that brings together the United States, India, Japan and Australia.
“China’s primary concern with India has always been India’s alignment with the United States,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington. “So Beijing certainly would not let the opportunity slide to regain some traction with Delhi.”
Still, analysts said, the thaw has not completely diminished the rivalry.
“They’re managing competition rather than resolving it,” said Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who has written about China’s role in shaping the U.S.-India relationship.
Mr. Xi would be happy to ignore India and address the other guests instead, Ms. Madan added. “He comes to India signaling to most of the world, ‘Look, we are the diplomatic, stable partner that still has a lot of friends, hint, hint, while the U.S. is pressing you in all these ways.’”
India also wants to signal that it can get along with a wide range of countries, including China and Russia.
The reality is that India has closer relationships with Western countries, Ms. Madan said. To them, she said, Indian wants to say: “We are keeping our options open, but we are not ditching you.”
India Sets the Stage
Mr. Modi has the advantage of being on his home turf. India is the rotating chair of the BRICS group this year, allowing it to set the agenda.
The official logo for this year’s summit, now plastered across New Delhi, features a stylized flower of five colors, each representing one of the bloc’s original five members. India, in the orange-hued saffron color symbolizing Mr. Modi’s ideological movement, is represented by a pair of folded palms at the center of the lotus blossom, another emblem of his Hindu-nationalist party.
As the host of the event, India’s government has shared few details about the agenda. But what it does say reflects Mr. Modi’s idea of global leadership, exemplified when New Delhi hosted the Group of 20 summit in 2023. “Inclusive Global Growth” remains a major theme, recalling Mr. Modi’s posture then, when India claimed credit for adding the African Union to the G20, and for crafting a joint statement that avoided choosing sides between Russia and Ukraine.
India was positioning itself at the G20 as the leader of the little guys, not to be dominated by the United States or other rich Western powers.
In many ways, India’s and Mr. Modi’s positions have weakened since then.
Mr. Modi’s positioning India as a “vishwaguru” or “teacher to the world” failed to translate into political success at home. Nine months after the G20 summit, he lost his parliamentary majority in a major upset, and he was forced to focus on state elections to secure his power.
India has also struggled to match China’s economic momentum, even as it remains the world’s fastest-growing major economy. Its subsidies for high-tech and strategic industries have mostly failed to bring the most essential parts of battery-making, solar modules and the rest of the green transition to Indian shores.
The war in Iran has made other forms of energy more expensive, dragging down India’s traditional heavy industry. And the global rush to invest in artificial intelligence — when India has virtually no homegrown champions — has left its stock market stagnant.
China’s Advantages
Beijing’s leadership of the developing world might seem like a given.
China boasts the world’s second-largest economy and is growing in technological and military might. China’s gross domestic product per capita is more than five times greater than India’s. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and India is not.
China fought the United States to a draw in a trade war last year and holds considerable leverage over advanced economies because of its overwhelming dominance on critical minerals and rare earth magnets.
“What exactly is India competing with China on? Those of us who have studied China-India relations long-term find it hard to see where any real competition exists,” said Lin Minwang, deputy director of the Center for South Asian Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
“This isn’t arrogance or self-conceit; it’s simply hard to imagine,” he added.
India has questioned whether China should get to call itself a developing nation, arguing that its economic and diplomatic power places it in a different category. It has excluded China from its summits of the Voice of the Global South, an annual forum that draws more than 100 developing countries.
Beijing’s state-driven export model, powered by government subsidies and cheap loans, has made it difficult for developing countries to compete in manufacturing beyond the cheapest goods, such as fast fashion and toys.
China’s “growth was fueled by unfair trade practices,” Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce minister, said last year. “This growth happened at the cost of fair play.”
Berry Wang contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
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