New Signals from the BRICS Summit: China Proposes the "Four Pioneers" to Define the Historical Mission of Cooperation

On September 12, delivering a speech at the first phase session of the 18th BRICS Summit, Xi Jinping viewed this year’s BRICS cooperation against the backdrop of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the BRICS mechanism. He proposed that BRICS countries should play a more active role in innovation, peace, civilizational exchanges and global governance. The New Delhi Declaration adopted at the summit further identified future directions for cooperation in political security, economytrade and finance, sustainable development, peopletopeople and cultural exchanges and other fields, and emphasized multilateralism and the reform of the global governance system.

In terms of agendasetting, sciencetechnology and economic cooperation constituted an important part of this summit. China put forward the initiative of AIenabled newtype industrialization, stressing the advancement of opensource development, openness, cooperation and sharing in artificial intelligence, and proposed deeper cooperation on industrial and supply chains. China also announced moves to advance relevant arrangements such as the BRICS AI OpenSource Zone. In its September 13 report, Reuters looked at these measures against the backdrop of economic and technological cooperation following the expansion of “Greater BRICS”, holding that topics including artificial intelligence, trade and finance are becoming important components of cooperation within the expanded BRICS bloc

Apart from economic and technological topics, coordination among GlobalSouth countries in international affairs was another major focus of the summit. At the secondphase session, Xi Jinping put forward four propositions: jointly safeguarding the international rule of law, holding high the banner of multilateralism, adhering to a peoplecentered development philosophy, and working together to advance security governance. They cover fields including international rules, reform of multilateral institutions, implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and global artificialintelligence governance. These propositions correspond to contents in the New Delhi Declaration concerning improving global governance, raising the representation of developing countries and strengthening multilateral cooperation.

The New Delhi Declaration also shows that the BRICS agenda is expanding further. The document covers multiple fields including trade, finance, scientifictechnological innovation, energy, food security, climate change and global governance. As BRICS expands its membership and partner outreach, the mechanism, originally built mainly on cooperation among emerging economies, is undertaking more political, security and globalgovernance issues. For outside observers, maintaining cooperative consensus amid diverging interests among members has also become a problem to be addressed in the nextphase development of “Greater BRICS”. On September 15, mainstream Indian media outlet The Indian Express published an expert interpretation article analysing the expanded value of the summit declaration. The report states that the summit declaration contains 140 paragraphs, covering diverse fields such as trade and investment, scientifictechnological research and development, green energy, food security, localcurrency settlement, and reform of international institutions. As BRICS membership grows, the boundaries of cooperation keep expanding, extending from traditional economictrade cooperation to highend scientifictechnological innovation, energy and food security, and innovation in global governance, marking that BRICS cooperation has entered an allround, multitiered new development phase.

On the bilateraldiplomacy front, the warming of ChinaIndia relations stood as a hotdiscussed focus of the summit. On September 12, Britain’s The Guardian gave prominent coverage to this China visit to India after an interval of seven years, regarding it as a landmark event for the steady improvement of ChinaIndia relations. The report noted the recent resumption of highlevel interactions and peopletopeople exchanges between China and India, alongside the gradual warming of bilateral relations. During the summit, Chinese and Indian leaders conducted indepth consultations and reached the important consensus that the two countries “should be development partners”. The two sides agreed to stay focused on the main thread of development, deepen practical cooperation in economytrade and peopletopeople and cultural fields, preserve peace and tranquillity along the border, and support each other’s tenure as rotating chair of BRICS. This meeting achieved indepth integration of bilateral cooperation and multilateral BRICS cooperation, creating new space for the two countries to expand common interests and realise mutual benefit and winwin outcomes.

Another important arrangement from the summit is that China will take over the rotating BRICS chairmanship in 2027 and host the 19th BRICS Leaders’ Summit. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, China will take this opportunity to build consensus with all parties, deepen practical cooperation and further advance BRICS cooperation. Looking ahead to the nextphase agenda, artificial intelligence, the digital economy, economicfinancial cooperation and globalgovernance reform will likely remain important fields for BRICS cooperation. At the same time, as membership expands, how BRICS can find common ground amid different development stages, diplomatic stances and economic interests will become key to observing the future development of this mechanism. For China, the 2027 rotatingchairmanship tenure will provide a new multilateraldiplomatic platform, and the newlyproposed “Four Pioneers” offer a relatively clear thematic framework for the nextphase BRICScooperation directions highlighted by China.