The message from Xiamen sounded reassuringly crystal clear. India and China are determined to put behind them what one Indian official described as the ‘D-Word’. Instead, Xi Jinping waxed eloquent about the Panchsheel principles and Prime Minister Narendra Modi said pointedly about Doklam: “Both of us know what happened. This was not a backward-looking conversation. It was forward-looking.” The Indian delegation was also delighted China agreed to name-and-shame Pakistan-based terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in the final Xiamen Declaration. This was the first time BRICS had named the groups, though it wasn’t quite the breakthrough it was initially portrayed as because these terrorist groups were also named at the Heart of Asia ministerial conference in Amritsar last year. India’s now waiting to see if China will block its bid to designate JeM chief Masood Azhar a global terrorist.

But the Chinese worked hard to ensure the summit wasn’t overshadowed by Doklam. To strike an optimistic note, Xi told Modi the two Asian giants “are development opportunities and not threats”. The Chinese had good reason to make the summit a success because it’s now the key country holding the group together. China used the summit to sell its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), especially to South Africa. Chinese and Russian companies also signed a Siberian joint energy exploration deal. At another level, the BRICS New Development Bank headed by India’s KV Kamath is powering ahead, assembling a war-chest and identifying infrastructure projects in which to invest. With BRICS accounting for over 30 per cent of global GDP, there’s also now talk of a BRICS rating agency to challenge ratings by western peers.

However, BRICS doesn’t really evoke much confidence. After all, this was a disparate construct dreamt up by British economist and Goldman Sachs banker Jim O’Neill in 2001, initially comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China — South Africa joined later. BRICS had only one common feature: they were big and had fast-growing economies. Their high growth rates and population, O’Neill reckoned, would turn them into key 21st-century global economy players. O’Neill’s predictions have, if anything, turned out to be conservative though the commodities crash has hobbled Brazil and Russia. O’Neill acknowledges China has outstripped all his predictions while India’s performance since 2001 has had its ups and downs. The BRICS summit only served to reinforce the brutal truth — we’ve lots of catching up to do with the Chinese. Finally, what will India do — if anything — about the BRI? It will be harder for BRI to succeed without India’s participation. But India’s uneasy about China’s expanding influence, especially in South Asia. And the controversial China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC which is part of the BRI running through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is a huge bone of contention. Differences between India and China may have been papered over for the moment — but they’re by no means resolved.

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