Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping might face each other at the 12th summit of the BRICS grouping which is scheduled to be held on November 17. The summit will be held virtually via a video conference in the backdrop of coronavirus.
This would be the first time the two leaders would come face-to-face since the border standoff between Indian and Chinese troop along the Line of Actual Control(LAC).
Russia, the host of this year’s Summit, announced on Monday that the annual meet will be held on November via video conference.
“The theme of the meeting of the leaders of BRICS countries is ‘BRICS Partnership for Global Stability, Shared Security and Innovative Growth’,” the Russian government said in a statement.
BRICS is an association of five nations : Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa which was formed in 2009. Since its formation, the BRICS members have conducted annual submits to discuss commercial, political and cultural cooperation between the member nations.
The BRICS countries have a combined GDP of USD 16.6 trillion and represents over 3.6 billion people which is simply half of the world’s population.
The summit was previously scheduled to held between July 21-23 along with a meeting of the heads of state council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, but was postponed due to coronavirus.
Modi and Xi will be attending the virtual summit, confirmed a diplomat involved in the arrangements of the event.
Last year, the meeting was chaired by Brazil at its capital city – Brazilia. Modi and Xi also held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit.
Amid the border row, both, India and China have had numerous bilateral talks to resolve the issue. However, no solution has been achieved as of now.
Meanwhile, the statement from Russia said that the five countries have continued close strategic partnership on all the three major pillars — Peace and security, economy and finance, cultural and people-to-people exchanges.
“Despite the current global situation due to the spread of the coronavirus infection, the activities under the Russian Brics chairmanship in 2020 are carried out in a consistent manner,” said Anton Kobyakov, adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Since January 2020, more than 60 events have been organised, including via videoconferencing. The Brics Summit will be the jewel-in-the-crown event of the Russian Brics chairmanship, which will provide impetus for further strengthening cooperation together with our partners to ensure well-being of Brics countries,” he said.
