Commentary: BRICS found consensus in New Delhi but that also showed its limits
The watered-down language in the joint declaration showed less a resolution of differences than the narrowing ground on which consensus can be found, says RSIS’ Nazia Hussain.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Bharat Mandapam, the venue of BRICS Summit in New Delhi, India, September 12, 2026. India’s Press Information Bureau/Handout via REUTERS
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SINGAPORE: A 20-second handshake between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as a 140-paragraph joint declaration – those were the headline-grabbing outcomes from the recent BRICS summit that showed both the value and challenges of keeping a disparate grouping together.
The two-day summit, which marked the 20th anniversary of the grouping, and the first held with 11 members and 10 partner countries, concluded in New Delhi on Sep 13 against the backdrop of a war in the Middle East that has drawn in several member states on opposing sides.
BRICS – comprising Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates – entered the summit with its divisions clearly exposed. Iran and the UAE have been on opposing sides of the wider conflict, while Iran-aligned Houthi forces have carried out attacks against Saudi Arabia. A deeper divide runs between India and China over an unresolved Himalayan border dispute and a wider contest over BRICS, with each seeking to position itself as the leading voice of the Global South.
These divisions had already cost the bloc an agreed text in May when foreign ministers could not reconcile their positions on the Iran war. Negotiations before the recent summit ran for four days and lasted into the early hours of Sep 12, with the difficulty concentrated in the paragraph on West Asia, or the Middle East.
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Consensus was eventually forged, with BRICS leaders calling for “maximum restraint” in the Middle East without saying who should exercise it. This allowed all 11 member states to sign on, while keeping their national positions intact.
A text that all member states could sign on the issue dividing them most sharply should not be dismissed, but the watered-down language showed less a resolution of differences than a potential concern – the narrowing ground on which consensus can be found.
CONVENING POWER
This time, the summit’s most consequential developments occurred outside the plenary.
Mr Xi had skipped the last BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro and had not visited India in seven years. In New Delhi, he and Mr Modi held their first bilateral meeting on Indian soil since the fatal border clash in 2020, agreeing that the two countries should be partners rather than rivals.
The handshake between the two leaders lasted some 20 seconds and was replayed widely, underscoring the significance attached to the meeting after years of frosty ties.
The Iranian president met the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi on the sidelines of the summit, their highest-level contact since the war began, and both delegations subsequently pointed to de-escalation. What this produces remains unclear, but is nevertheless more than either government could arrange bilaterally.
Such encounters between states with conflicts and deeply different interests and goals were possible partly because of the bloc’s expansion in recent years. For example, Saudi Arabia and Iran – longstanding rivals despite their Beijing-brokered agreement to resume diplomatic ties – joined in 2023.
A grouping this divergent was never going to speak with one voice. It can, however, bring states with competing interests to the same table.
LIMITS OF CONSENSUS
Agreement is easier to reach when no member has a direct stake in the outcome. This was evident in the joint declaration where the bloc’s most concrete commitments were financial.
Leaders encouraged the New Development Bank (NDB), formerly known as the BRICS Development Bank, to expand local currency financing, which lets developing countries borrow in their own money and spares them the risk that a weakening exchange rate inflates their debt. It is an unglamorous fix for a problem that has pushed poorer economies into repeated crises, and one the World Bank has been slow to address.
The declaration also noted progress on the BRICS Multilateral Guarantees initiative launched in Rio, meant to draw private capital into projects that struggle to attract it.
The scale remains modest. The NDB has approved 139 projects worth about US$43 billion in a decade, against the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s US$69 billion across 350 projects committed over the same period. Still, it points to where BRICS has been most useful – as an additional source of finance for countries that want more options than established institutions provide.
On wars and trade disputes, alignment required delicate balancing and careful phrasing.
Iran signed the joint declaration but left with less than it took from Rio, where the 2025 joint statement condemned the US military strikes against it that year. This time in Delhi, the declaration reiterated its “serious concern over attacks on civilian infrastructure and IAEA-safeguarded nuclear facilities” but dropped the “strong condemnation”. The difference is that the UAE, which Iran has launched repeated attacks on, is now a party to the war rather than an onlooker.
The Delhi statement also made no mention of the Ukraine war, a departure from last year’s summit.
When it comes to trade, the language follows a similar pattern, voicing serious concern over unilateral tariff measures and condemning secondary sanctions without naming the United States. This was unsurprising when several members are managing their own trade and security relationships with Washington. The restraint also suits members who resist seeing BRICS cast as an anti-Western bloc.
WHAT LIES AHEAD
A grouping that agrees most readily where little is at stake runs the risk of being misread.
BRICS has been seen as an alternative to the Western-led order when countries lined up to join and dismissed as inconsequential when the Iran war exposed its limits. The conclusion of a successful summit with a joint declaration, despite glaring divisions among members, helps dispel the latter. But a consensus that side-steps divisive issues leaves BRICS open to the familiar criticism of being a talk shop.
Prospective members appear more pragmatic. Despite US President Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on countries perceived to be aligning with BRICS, interest in membership has held. The attraction lies less in alignment than in market access, alternative funding and a seat where the rules might eventually change.
For example, Southeast Asia has calibrated accordingly. Indonesia took full membership while Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam became partner states, gaining access without the obligations of membership or the appearance of choosing a side.
Expansion is a double-edged sword for a consensus-seeking heterogeneous grouping. The addition of new members would add to the grouping’s weight, which already represents more than 40 per cent of the world’s total economic output. However, it would also narrow the ground on which its members can agree. The summit in New Delhi showed how narrow that ground has already become.
China is set to take over as chair in 2027. Mr Xi has described BRICS as the most important platform for solidarity among emerging market and developing countries. As the bloc’s largest economy and a consistent advocate of enlargement, Beijing is well placed to pursue that ambition.
Yet the question for the bloc into its third decade is not whether members can speak with one voice. It is whether a bloc whose strength lies in accommodating differences can be made to deliver more than declarations.
Nazia Hussain is an Associate Research Fellow at the Centre for Multilateralism Studies at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.
Source: CNA/sk
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