Why Trump-Xi's 'G2' Could Play Spoilsport in India's BRICS Bid

New Delhi realises that without Chinese support, it would find it difficult to give shape to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much vaunted “Make in India” campaign.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

Days after Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with US President Donald Trump to end hostilities, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke on the phone with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

As per the Iranian readout, amid expressions of condolences following the martyrdom of the Ayatollah Khomenei and other Iranian officials and citizens during the recent war, PM Modi also extended the formal invite to Iran for the upcoming 18th BRICS Leaders' Summit in India.

The PM “formally invited the President of Iran to attend the upcoming BRICS Leaders’ Summit to be hosted by India and expressed hope that the meeting would contribute to further strengthening multilateral cooperation among the member countries,” Iran posted on X.

A test of India’s ambivalence on BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), however, may become available soon. Despite Indian publications strenuously claiming that Chinese President Xi Jinping has also committed to take part in the BRICS summit scheduled for 12-13 September, there is no firm commitment from Beijing as yet.

Interestingly, while the Chinese leader may still attend the Delhi event, his proposed visit to the White House to take part in what a voluble US President is calling the "G2 summit" has been gathering more attention.

Xi’s trip to Washington so soon after his yet to be confirmed visit to attend the BRICS summit in Delhi raises questions about the importance of the event organised by India. It is deliberate. The profile of BRICS has grown, but India's ambivalence towards the body has led to it being called "the weakest link" of this transcontinental grouping, as envisaged by the Goldman Sachs’s former chief economist Jim O’Neill.

The challenge to BRICS is coming from the US, which has been in a major churn ever since Donald Trump took over as President for the second time. This is not just due to the manner in which he has used his considerable bearing and amoral network to question existing geopolitical norms, but also because of how he proposes to take on the challenges his country faces, especially from China.

Trump's New Friend?

Trump has made it amply clear that his worries about semi-conductor chips, AI, or defence issues, all revolve around the rise and rise of China. During his trip to attend the G7 summit at Evian, France, Trump dropped a bombshell when he informed the old world that he was ready to meet Xi at what he chose to call the "G2 summit".

The primacy that China enjoys in this Trumpian age can be gauged by his excitement during his recent Beijing visit. Political observers thought that the mood in Beijing was no different from the time when Richard Nixon or Barack Obama visited China, as they saw these visits as a kind of coming of age of the Asian power.

Trump’s Beijing visit was incidentally followed by the decision to go through the signing of the contentious MoU with Iran. Unconfirmed reports claim that the Chinese threatened to send their flotilla of destroyers through the Strait of Hormuz and challenge the US blockade. Neither the Chinese went through with their alleged threats, nor did the US have to confront this new challenge to their military power.

American overtures may come as music to Beijing's ears, but surely they spell bad news for the European powers that have been feeling diminished ever since Trump came to power in 2025 and took steps to reduce US military exposure to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

Though quiet, India, too, was taken aback by this public display of warmth between the US and China. India has done everything conceivable to keep Trump and the US happy. It has held its silence, despite grave provocations by the US like the tarrif hikes. In India's eyes, the US has done the cardinal sin of praising Pakistan and supping with their Field Marshal, Asim Munir. India has borne it with patience, tolerance being one of its many virtues.

India also knows that retaliation would not work as in the words of the US President; India just does not have the cards. The only folly it committed was that it refused to admit that the US President stopped the four-day war between India and Pakistan last year.

An Increasingly Volatile Neighbourhood

Meanwhile, India has been playing hot and cold with China in the name of strategic autonomy.

New Delhi realises that without Chinese support, it would find it difficult to give shape to PM Modi’s much vaunted “Make in India” campaign. Even India’s high trade volume with China is due to import of critical inputs. That said, India’s attempts to normalise ties with China are still running low on gas.

The Chinese government has stalled two lakh visas to Indian businesses. And yet, there is a visible thawing of ties between the two large neighbours. This was evidenced by the bonhomie shown by the two sides during the recent meeting of the NSAs chaired by Indian security tsar, Ajit Doval. China sent in their foreign minister, Wang Yi, who also met PM Modi. It is possible that Wang Yi was carrying a message from his boss, Xi, though nothing tangible has visibly emerged from this meeting so far.

The first marker of the direction the Indo-China ties are going to take will become visible once China brings on its sweeping new regulations on “outbound investment”. The laws would allow the country's state council to supervise all the deals, investments, and transfers of sensitive technologies and data to other nations, analysing everything including business through the prism of national security.

This regulation could hurt India, especially if China feels that it is harming itself by allowing free movement for the transfer of technology owned by companies like Apple, Oppo, and Vivo to India.

India, which is not trusted by other BRICS members, would be wary of the US President’s visit to Beijing. There would be justifiable fear in Delhi that the US government, by raising China's global profile, would make New Delhi look far more puny in global affairs than what it is.

It is eminently possible that the Chinese may use the BRICS event to take concrete steps on de-dollarisation in order to cut a deal with Trump and his team on this issue.

Be that as it may, organsing BRICS summit provides India an opportunity to rework ties with the US and China in a manner that would require all the creativity and guile that New Delhi could muster. Can we do it?

(Sanjay Kapoor is a veteran journalist and founder of Hardnews Magazine. He is a foreign policy specialist focused on India and its neighbours, and West Asia. This is an opinion piece. All views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)