No PM Modi-XI Jinping Moment: China called the President to leave the BRICS summit, to participate in Premier Lee
Chinese premiere Lee Kiang will represent China at the 17th BRICS summit in Brazil later this week, leaving the annual gathering of the block since assuming power in 2012, marking President Xi Jinping for the first time.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning on Wednesday confirmed that Premier Lee XI would attend the July 5-8 summit in Rio de Janeiro. However, she refused to expand why Xi chose to sit at a summit, which she participated in a consecutive decade for more than a decade.The high-profile summit will also be attended by PM Modi, at a time when the China-India relations are in a cautious melting after the stresses incited by military deadlock in eastern Ladakh.Xi’s absence speculatedXi’s absence is increasing eyebrows in diplomatic circles, especially given the recent efforts to reset India-China relations. The 2023 BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia was seen as a turn when PM Modi and Xi organized their first in-in-in-person conversation in four years. The meeting held the bilateral dialogue system to reopen and later reopen the round of diplomatic dialogues, the purpose of stabilizing the relationship.Supervisors are now questioning whether Xi’s decision to release Rio indicates a decline in Chinese diplomatic engagement with BRICS or a broad strategic repetition, especially BRICS has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE.PM Modi-Xi: Next possible encounter in SCO?This year with XI from the BRICS equation, the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) changes attention to the summit, which will later be hosted by China in 2025. If PM Modi is present, it may present the next opportunity for a bilateral meeting between the two leaders.
