BRICS, India-China and Global South

The emergence and expansion of BRICS must be understood against the backdrop of a profound transformation in the international political economy. The global distribution of economic power has changed substantially over the past several decades, but the institutions of global governance have not evolved at a comparable pace. The result is a growing disconnect between where economic power resides and where institutional power is exercised. The rise of the Global South, therefore, is not simply a story of economic growth; it is also a demand for greater agency in shaping the rules, institutions and opportunities that govern the international system. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DELHI BRICS SUMMIT The 2026 New Delhi BRICS Summit should be viewed as a watershed in the transition from the original BRICS-5 to a broader BRICS+ architecture. The contemporary international environment is marked by geopolitical turbulence, unilateralism, protectionism and a renewed Cold War mentality. These tendencies have disrupted the upward trajectory of global growth and exposed weaknesses in a system of global governance whose institutions and norms remain disproportionately shaped by the developed West. Yet these same pressures have also demonstrated the resilience of BRICS. Despite considerable differences in political systems, strategic interests and foreign-policy orientations, the mechanism has continued to expand. With 11 members and 10 partner countries, BRICS now encompasses nearly half of the world's population and roughly two-fifths of global economic output, while accounting for around 23% of global trade. The expanded BRICS+ configuration therefore has the potential to become a formidable minilateral platform, capable of narrowing the gap with the G7 and contributing to a more equitable and genuinely multipolar international order. The four themes of India's 2026 presidency—Building Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability, provide a useful framework for this transition. Their significance lies not in challenging the West for its own sake, but in creating greater choice, representation and bargaining power for emerging and developing countries. BRICS should consequently be understood as a non-Western but not necessarily anti-Western platform. Its objective should be to reform and pluralise the existing multilateral system while strengthening complementary institutions capable of addressing the developmental needs of the Global South. This is particularly important because the global economy has undergone a profound structural transformation. China's share of the world economy, for example, has risen to around 17%, while the United States and Europe account for approximately 26.3% and 17.3% respectively. In relative bilateral terms, China's GDP was approximately 13% of that of the United States in 1945; by 2024, it had risen to around 64%. The transformation is even more striking in manufacturing, where China now accounts for 35% of global manufacturing output, exceeding the combined output of the next nine countries. Institutional representation, however, has not kept pace with this transformation. Within the IMF, the United States retains 16.49% of voting rights, effectively a veto share, whereas China's share is about 6.4% and India's approximately 2.7%. According to Tricontinental Institute of Social Research, 'Each person in the Global North is worth nine people in the Global South.' The central problem is therefore the persistence of a governance deficit. Therefore, BRICS should consequently champion reform of the UN Security Council, IMF, World Bank, WTO and other institutions while simultaneously strengthening complementary SouthSouth institutions such as the New Development Bank (NDB). The 2025 Rio Declaration's call for reform of the Security Council and greater representation of developing countries, including support for a greater role for Brazil and India in the UN system, illustrates this dual approach. BRICS AND THE GLOBAL SOUTH BRICS' most distinctive advantage is that it brings together, within a single mechanism, major poles of the Global South across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. It combines demographic scale, natural resources, manufacturing capacity, technological capabilities, financial resources and political influence, with development as the broadest common denominator. This is important because the Global South is not a homogeneous political bloc. Its members differ widely in political systems, economic structures and foreignpolicy orientations. What increasingly unites them is a shared interest in development, greater policy space, more equitable representation and freedom to pursue their own developmental trajectories. The economic weight of the expanded BRICS is considerable. Its 11 members represent around half of humanity and approximately two-fifths of global economic output. EFG estimates that BRICS could account for about 58% of global GDP growth during 2024-29, compared with approximately 25% for the G7. This suggests that the future dynamism of the world economy is increasingly located outside the traditional centres of Western economic power. At the same time, however, the developmental deficits of the Global South remain enormous. More than 700 million people continue to live in extreme poverty, while illiteracy affects significant populations in parts of subSaharan Africa and South Asia. Conflict, instability and weak institutional capacity further compound these socioeconomic problems. The Global Peace Index indicates that many of the world's least peaceful countries are located in the Global South. These challenges coexist with demographic vitality, expanding markets and growing developmental aspirations, creating both an urgent need and a substantial opportunity for South-South cooperation. The long-term potential of BRICS, therefore, lies in its capacity to evolve from a mechanism of political consultation into a functional economic architecture for the Global South. The NDB is perhaps the clearest illustration. By the end of 2025, the NDB had approved US$43.01 billion for 139 projects, with an active portfolio exceeding US$35.6 billion. These projects span infrastructure, clean energy, transport, water and sanitation, environmental protection, and social and digital infrastructure. In India alone, 32 projects worth approximately US$9.5 billion had been approved by March 2026. The NDB can thus contribute to reducing infrastructure and financing gaps while giving developing countries additional choices in accessing development finance. China's wider development-finance ecosystem provides another important dimension of this process. China works with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organisations through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Its Global Development Initiative (GDI) has mobilised nearly US$20 billion for more than 1,100 projects, according to China Daily. A more comprehensive AidData dataset estimates that Chinese official-sector institutions provided nearly US$2.2 trillion in loans and grants across 217 countries between 2000 and 2023. In 2023 alone, China's overseas lending was estimated at approximately US$140 billion, making it the world's largest official creditor by this measure. More than 95% of China's overseas lending and grant portfolio, according to AidData, is provided through state-owned commercial banks, state-owned enterprises, policy banks and the central bank rather than conventional aid agencies. China's US$4 billion Global Development and SouthSouth Cooperation Fund had supported more than 180 projects, while more than 60,000 people had received training through GDI-related programmes. BRICS can bring complementarities and the capabilities of member and partner countries together. China contributes manufacturing, infrastructure, finance, technology and supplychain capabilities; India brings strengths in digital public infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, services and development partnerships; Brazil contributes agricultural and bioeconomy capabilities; Russia brings energy and scientific capacities; Gulf members provide capital and energy resources; while African and Asian members offer expanding markets and resource endowments. The challenge is to transform these complementarities into South-South value chains, moving developing economies beyond raw-material dependence toward processing, manufacturing, technology acquisition and higher-value production. INDIA-CHINA AND THE BRICS Within this broader transformation, the relationship between India and China is of particular significance. The two countries should treat their successive BRICS presidencies in 2026 and 2027 as a single two-year strategic window, rather than as two disconnected national chairships. The economic rationale is compelling. IntraBRICS merchandise trade has reached approximately US$1.17 trillion, compared with only US$84 billion in 2003. China's trade with BRICS members and partner countries reached 6.11 trillion yuan in the first half of 2025 alone. These figures demonstrate that BRICS already possesses a substantial economic constituency. The next challenge is to transform trade volume into greater integration, resilience and developmental value. For India and China, this requires addressing the asymmetries in their bilateral economic relationship. India should seek greater access for its exports to the Chinese market, while both countries should explore joint ventures, investment, complementary supply chains and technology cooperation. The objective should not be to erase economic competition, which is neither realistic nor necessary, but to develop a framework of managed strategic coexistence in which competition does not prevent cooperation in areas of shared developmental interest. The two countries could make four flagship initiatives the centrepiece of their successive presidencies. First, BRICS should work towards an interoperable payments and settlement architecture, linking national fast-payment systems and, where appropriate, centralbank digital currencies while facilitating greater use of local currencies. The objective should not be de-dollarisation for its own sake or the creation of a closed financial bloc, but greater choice, resilience, efficiency and affordability in cross-border payments. Second, BRICS should strengthen a development and industrialisation initiative through the NDB, combining local-currency financing with infrastructure, manufacturing and green-transition projects. Third, it should establish a more ambitious BRICS technology partnership, particularly in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, health technology, agricultural technology and green technologies. Fourth, BRICS should institutionalise its people-to-people mechanism, extending cooperation among universities, research institutions, museums, libraries, media organisations and publishing industries. The last dimension deserves greater attention. Economic and institutional cooperation cannot by itself provide the social foundation for a durable BRICS. People-to-people relations are already recognised as one of the three pillars of BRICS cooperation alongside political-security and economic-financial cooperation. Their institutionalisation could include academic mobility programmes, recognition of qualifications, joint research networks, translation and publishing initiatives, youth fellowships, cultural networks, museum and library partnerships, and cooperation among cities and municipalities. For India and China, this has a much deeper civilizational significance. Their relationship predates the modern nation-state by more than two millennia. Routes across the Himalayas, Central Asia and the maritime world facilitated the movement of monks, pilgrims, scholars, merchants, texts, technologies and commodities. Translation was one of the principal mechanisms through which this circulatory movement transformed both civilizations. The unfinished mutual translation project agreed upon by India and China in 2013 is consequently unfortunate. It raises questions about our commitment to honouring bilateral agreements and sustaining long-term intellectual and cultural cooperation. Finally,the future of BRICS will ultimately be determined by whether it can convert aggregate weight into collective agency. Its expanded membership gives the Global South greater demographic, economic and political representation, but representation alone is insufficient. BRICS must develop practical mechanisms through which countries can finance infrastructure, strengthen technological capabilities, facilitate trade, improve food and energy security, build resilient payment systems and participate more effectively in global rule-making. The 2026 New Delhi Summit provides an important opportunity to begin this transition. India and China, as successive chairs in 2026 and 2027, have a particular responsibility to establish continuity rather than competition. They should act not as self-appointed spokespersons for the Global South, but as bridge-builders and coalition-builders, forging consensus through consultation with the wider BRICS+ membership. The ultimate objective should not be to replace one hegemonic bloc with another; its more durable contribution would be to diversify the sources of global finance, technology, development expertise and institutional influence, thereby strengthening the development sovereignty and agency of the Global South. B.R. Deepak is Professor, Centre for Chinese Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.