China said on Wednesday (July 2, 2025) that Prime Minister Lee Qing will attend the BRICS summit to be held in Brazil at the end of this week. This has confirmed the reports that President Xi Jinping will not attend the group meeting for the first time after assuming power 12 years ago.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning told in the press conference that Lee will attend the 17th BRICS summit to be held from July 5 to 8 at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the invitation. However, he deferred the question as to why Xi Jinping decided not to attend the program. Xi always attended the BRICS summit during his 12 -year tenure in power.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the Rio Summit. BRICS, consisting of BRICS consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE).
BRICS Summit held in Kazan, Russia last year, became important, as both PM Modi and Xi Jinping met there, causing the deadlock in bilateral relations to end for four years due to the deadlock in East Ladakh."Text-Align: justify;"> After the meeting, both sides agreed to restore various bilateral dialogue mechanisms. After the talks of PM Modi and Xi Jinping, both sides held several meetings in the last few months with the aim of normalizing bilateral relations.
In view of the decision of Xi Jinping not to participate in the Rio Summit, the next occasion of Xi-Modi meeting can be the SCO summit to be held in China, if Prime Minister Modi participates in it.
The current Chairman of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is planned to organize the summit later this year. Regarding the BRICS summit, Mao Ning said that this group serves as the most important platform for solidarity and cooperation between emerging markets and developing countries and represents a major power in furthering a uniform and systematic multipolar world and inclusive economic globalization."Text-Align: justify;"> He said that China is ready to strengthen the BRICS strategic partnership with all the parties, to maintain multilateralism, promote shared development, improve global rule and promote high quality development of BRICS cooperation structure.
