[BEIJING] China has confirmed that President Xi Jinping will take part in a virtual Brics summit convened by Brazil to discuss US President Donald Trump’s trade policy. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will skip the meeting but will send a senior representative instead.
“President Xi Jinping will attend the Brics Leaders’ online summit in Beijing on Sep 8 and deliver an important speech,” according to a statement from China’s Foreign Ministry.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will also take part in the summit, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said last week, according to Russian news agency Tass.
Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has called the gathering to discuss not only the trade tariffs imposed by Trump, but also to rally fellow heads of major emerging market nations in support of multilateralism, Bloomberg News reported last week, citing sources familiar with the plan.
Brics, which includes South Africa, has increasingly drawn the ire of Trump as it expands with new members from Asia and the Middle East. In July, the US president threatened to impose additional tariffs on any country aligning itself with the group’s “anti-American policies”. He has also repeatedly criticised efforts by Brics members to boost trade in their own currencies and bypass the US dollar.
But Trump’s tariffs have further encouraged Brics nations to increase ties with Beijing.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
During a week of high-stakes diplomacy, Xi hosted Putin and Modi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, and welcomed dozens of other world leaders including North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to Beijing for a Sep 3 military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
New Delhi has tread carefully in recent days in its dealings with Washington, after Trump appeared to soften his tone towards India following weeks of friction over US tariffs of 50 per cent on Indian goods.
Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, told reporters at a regular briefing on Friday that Modi would not be attending. Instead, the South Asian nation will be represented by its foreign minister.
Monday’s virtual meeting of Brics leaders is scheduled to last only a couple of hours, starting 8 am ET, according to a Brazilian government official familiar with the plan.
Speeches will be closed to the press, and it will be up to each leader to decide whether to publish their remarks, the official said. There will be no joint statement at the end of the meeting, they added. BLOOMBERG
