India closed its 2026 chairship last weekend, when it hosted the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit at Bharat Mandapam under the theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”.
The Chinese President Xi Jinping traveled to India, even though for less than 24 hours, signaling some willingness to rebuild ties with India’s Modi, as they meet for the first time since 2019 and after the countries fought deadly border clashes in 2020. The Presidents of Russia, Iran, South Africa, and Indonesia are also some of the key leaders who took part in the Summit.
The grouping now comprises eleven members and ten partners. Such enlargement has produced a group that convenes close to half the world’s population and, on purchasing-power terms, roughly 40 % of global output, a figure overwhelmingly concentrated in one member, and much smaller at market exchange rates.
This Summit’s agenda focused on strengthening cooperation among member countries while promoting practical outcomes in areas such as economic development, technology, sustainability and global governance. What the summit produced, and, perhaps more importantly, what it did not, illustrates a difficulty that has plagued the group since its creation and that indeed accentuated with its expansion in recent years: the strategies that make membership attractive to each state individually are the same ones that prevent the group from acting collectively.
