PM Modi invited for state dinner, Xi Jinping pulls out of BRICS Summit for the first time in 12 years
Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to miss the 17th
BRICS
Summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, in what would be his first absence from the high-level annual meet since assuming office in 2013. The news was reported by South China Morning Post (SCMP), quoting multiple diplomatic sources.
Premier
Li Qiang
, a close aide of Xi and currently China's Premier, is expected to lead the Chinese delegation at the summit, scheduled for 6–7 July. He had also represented China at the G20 Summit in New Delhi in 2023.
Brazilian officials are said to be displeased by the move. One senior source in Brasília told the SCMP that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had travelled to Beijing in May 'as a gesture of goodwill' and in 'expectation that the Chinese president would reciprocate' by attending the Rio summit in person.
China says 'scheduling conflict'; Brazil sees a snub
Beijing has officially cited a scheduling conflict. However, Brazilian officials suggest other motives may be at play. According to SCMP, some in China believe that the state dinner invitation extended to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have tipped the balance. The optics of such a moment—Modi and Lula in the spotlight—could make Xi appear, in the words of one diplomat, 'a supporting actor'.
For a leader used to centre stage at global forums, the symbolism might matter.
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Adding to this, Chinese officials have pointed out that Xi and Lula have already met twice in under a year—first during a state visit to Brasília in November 2023, and again at the China-CELAC forum in Beijing in May 2024. They argue that this frequency makes another in-person engagement less necessary.
Still, Brazil appears to view the absence as a diplomatic slight. Lula's special adviser for international affairs, Celso Amorim, had raised the matter directly with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as early as February. 'I said to them, 'Brics without China is not Brics,'' Amorim told SCMP. He added, 'He [Hu Jintao] stayed only one day, but he came,' referring to the 2010 BRICS summit in Brasília, which Hu attended despite a major earthquake in China.
Strategic optics and the Modi factor
Much of the discomfort, according to diplomats, revolves around the perception that Modi is fast becoming the key figure at such multilateral platforms. A state dinner invitation to him—on Lula's home turf—has added weight to that impression.
In an era where image and alliances are tightly choreographed, it's not just about who shows up, but who gets photographed shaking hands, delivering keynotes, and raising toasts.
The Modi-Xi dynamic has remained strained since the 2020 Himalayan border clashes. While the two met in October 2024 on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Russia, ties remain tense. If Xi skips Rio, the next potential meeting point between the two leaders could be the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, which Beijing is set to host later this year.
Official silence, unofficial discontent
The Brazilian foreign ministry has not commented officially on Xi's absence, stating it 'will not comment on internal deliberations of foreign delegations'.
But the frustration is evident.
China, for its part, continues to voice support for Brazil's BRICS presidency. 'Information about participation in the summit will be shared at the appropriate time,' Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told Brazilian newspaper Folha. He added that Beijing aims 'to promote deeper cooperation' among BRICS members.
'In a volatile and turbulent world, BRICS nations maintain their strategic resolve and work together for global peace, stability and development,' Guo said.
A bigger bloc, a bigger test
The BRICS grouping—founded as BRIC in 2009 and expanded to include South Africa in 2010—has grown significantly in the past year. New full members now include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Fifteen other countries, from Bolivia to Uzbekistan, have been invited as partners.
But expansion brings complexity.
Xi's expected absence could be an early signal that unity among the old core members is beginning to fray—especially as India and China seek to define their respective global roles differently. And Brazil, left navigating between both, is feeling the strain.
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