New Delhi Readies for 18th BRICS Summit as Xi Plans First India Visit in Seven Years

New Delhi is entering the final week of preparations for the 18th BRICS Summit, which will bring Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and more than a dozen other heads of state and government to Bharat Mandapam in Pragati Maidan on September 12 and 13. For India, which last hosted a gathering of this scale at the G20 Summit in 2023, the meeting is both a logistical undertaking and a diplomatic test — one that will be watched most closely for Xi's arrival, his first visit to India in seven years.

A far larger Chinese delegation than 2019

According to Swarajya, which cited reporting by The Times of India and Reuters, Xi is expected to travel with a delegation of roughly 400 officials — more than double the contingent of fewer than 200 that accompanied him on his last visit, the 2019 informal summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. An unnamed Indian source told Reuters that "Chinese officials are busy finalising hotels and security protocols" ahead of the trip.

Beijing has publicly backed the summit. "China attaches great importance to and actively participates in BRICS cooperation, and supports India, the current chair, in successfully hosting this year's BRICS summit," the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement quoted by both WION and Swarajya.

The visit lands at a delicate moment in the bilateral relationship. Ties between the two countries were severely strained by the 2020 Galwan Valley clash, and a disengagement understanding reached in October 2024 opened the door to the current diplomatic thaw, including resumed talks on the boundary question. Swarajya reported that National Security Advisor Ajit Doval travelled to Beijing for the 25th round of Special Representatives talks on the border ahead of the summit. The China-Global South Project, in an analysis published on September 7, noted that friction has not disappeared: it pointed to a reported patrol confrontation in Arunachal Pradesh in July 2026, and to India's continued pressure on Beijing over market access and a bilateral trade deficit it said exceeds 100 billion dollars.

Who is coming to Delhi

The guest list assembled by WION reads like a roll call of the expanded bloc and its partners. Alongside Putin and Xi, the heads of state expected in New Delhi include:

• Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian
• South African President Cyril Ramaphosa
• Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
• Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto
• Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev
• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko
• Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev

Prime Ministers Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia and Anutin Charnvirakul of Thailand, and Ethiopia's Abiy Ahmed, are also expected, per WION. Brazil, notably, will not be represented by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva; Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira is expected to attend in his place. The Sunday Guardian reported that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres may also join, and lists the bloc's current membership at eleven — Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates — plus ten partner countries including Belarus, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and Vietnam.

An agenda built around money, trade and reform

India is chairing the bloc under the theme "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability", and the Sunday Guardian reported that the presidency has organised more than 350 BRICS-related meetings across more than 25 cities in the run-up to the leaders' meeting. A BRICS Business Forum will precede the summit at the same venue on September 11, a day the Delhi government has declared a public holiday for government offices in the capital.

On substance, the agenda spans trade settlement in national currencies and cross-border payments, supply chains, energy security, climate resilience, digital trade and artificial intelligence, along with the bloc's long-standing demand for reform of global governance institutions. The China-Global South Project reported that leaders could push for revisions to International Monetary Fund quotas, and framed the summit around three open questions: whether India can secure a full "big BRICS family photo" of leaders, whether the bloc can advance substantive financial measures amid Western concerns about de-dollarisation, and whether it will expand again — Iraq, Madagascar and Malaysia are among the countries it named as seeking membership.

What is at stake for India

For New Delhi, the summit is a chance to demonstrate convening power across the Global South at a moment when the bloc has grown to roughly 20 members and partners. Wang Youming, a BRICS specialist at the China Institute of International Studies, a think tank affiliated with China's foreign ministry, told the China-Global South Project that competition between Beijing and New Delhi over new initiatives will be one of the dynamics to watch inside the room.

The stagecraft, however, will be inseparable from the substance. A handshake between Modi and Xi at Bharat Mandapam — six years after their last meeting on Indian soil, and after the deadliest border violence between the two countries in decades — would itself be the summit's defining image. Whether it is followed by movement on the border, on trade, or on the bloc's ambitions for a payments architecture of its own is the question the next week will begin to answer.

Sources: WION; The Sunday Guardian; The China-Global South Project; Swarajya.