Illustration: Liu Rui/ GT

Editor's Note:

As the two-day BRICS Summit in India concluded, the mission of the group continues - expanding its ranks and influence, yet still endeavoring to turn shared aspirations into collective action. In this context, Global Times (GT) reporter Li Aixin talked to Vijay Prashad (Prashad), an Indian historian and executive director of Tricontinental, a Global South-focused research institute, over the significance of this year's BRICS Summit, its past achievements and China-India cooperation within the BRICS framework. "If China and India collaborate, BRICS can become a workshop for development," Prashad noted.

GT: The theme of this year's BRICS Summit - "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability" - is itself an acronym for the group. How do you understand the theme and the significance of this summit?

Prashad: India has turned BRICS into a programmatic acronym: "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability." This is clever, but its significance will depend upon whether the four words acquire material content. Resilience must mean protection from sanctions, financial shocks, supply-chain disruption, and climate catastrophe. Innovation must include the social ownership and sharing of technology. Cooperation must produce institutions, while sustainability must address the development needs of billions of people. 

The summit was significant because this was the first Indian chairmanship since the expansion of BRICS. India hosted a broad formation of countries representing several regions of the Global South. The theme signals that India wanted BRICS to be a practical institution capable of building alternatives in finance, technology, health, energy, and development. 

The test of India's chairmanship is whether it can translate its language of strategic autonomy into institutions that expand the autonomy of the Global South as a whole. India should act not merely as a bridge between the West and BRICS, but as a builder within BRICS. 

GT: What do you see as BRICS' most important achievement in recent years? 

Prashad: BRICS' greatest achievement is not any single bank, declaration, or summit. It is that the organization has made cooperation among major states of the Global South appear normal, necessary, and increasingly irreversible. For centuries, the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America were connected principally through institutions designed and controlled by the North Atlantic powers. BRICS has begun to reverse that historical geometry. The New Development Bank (NDB), growing trade in local currencies, discussions about cross-border payment systems, cooperation in health and agriculture, and the enlargement of the group are all expressions of this change. The NDB remains the most concrete institutional achievement, particularly because it has established that development finance does not have to come with the political conditionalities associated with the IMF and World Bank. 

But BRICS must go further. It requires stronger mechanisms for development lending, technology transfer, currency stability, and protection against unilateral sanctions. Its achievement so far is the creation of possibility; its next task is to give that possibility institutional weight.

GT: Within the BRICS framework, what cooperation between China and India do you think is worth highlighting?

Prashad: China and India have often cooperated more substantially inside BRICS than the temperature of their bilateral relationship would suggest. They have worked together on reform of the international financial system, defended the development rights of the Global South in climate negotiations, supported the NDB, and opposed the monopolization of global governance by a small number of Western states. 

The most important point is that China and India bring complementary capacities. China possesses immense industrial strength, infrastructure experience, and technological capacity. India has a large scientific workforce, important pharmaceutical and digital sectors, considerable agricultural experience, and deep political relationships across the Global South. Cooperation between them could substantially expand the production of medicines, renewable-energy systems, public digital infrastructure, agricultural technology, and affordable transport. 

If China and India collaborate, BRICS can become a workshop for development. If they remain divided, BRICS will continue to advance, but far below its potential.

GT: Since last year, there have been signs of a thaw between China and India. What do you think is the most vital factor driving this momentum?

Prashad: The most vital factor is material reality. China and India are neighbours, civilizational states, major economies, and home to more than one-third of humanity. Geography cannot be cancelled, and economic interdependence cannot be wished away. Neither country gains from converting a difficult border dispute into permanent strategic hostility. There is also a wider international factor. The instability of US policy, the increasing use of tariffs and sanctions, and the fragmentation of supply chains is a reminder that excessive dependence upon distant powers carries serious risks. China and India need a stable Asian environment if they are to address development, employment, climate pressures, and technological transformation. 

But the thaw does not mean a settled reconciliation. Trust requires a sustained border-management mechanism, restraint in public rhetoric, restoration of academic and cultural exchanges, easier visas, and an understanding that neither country should allow third powers to define their relationship. The prospects are guarded but real. Peace between China and India is not a sentimental aspiration; it is a developmental necessity.

GT: For China and India, where could cooperation start if the relationship is to move forward? In which areas is there real potential to take it further?

Prashad: Cooperation should begin in areas where there is an immediate social benefit and where success can gradually rebuild confidence. First, the two countries should stabilize the border through regular political and military dialogue, agreed protocols, and the restoration of normal life and trade in frontier communities. Border stability is the foundation for everything else. 

Second, they could cooperate on pharmaceuticals and public health. India's generic-medicine industry and China's manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients already form an interdependent system. Joint production could provide affordable medicines and vaccines to the Global South. 

Third, there is immense potential in renewable energy, electric transport, batteries, and climate-resilient infrastructure. China's productive capacity and India's growing domestic market could lower the cost of the green transition. 

Fourth, the two countries could develop more reliable local-currency settlement and cross-border payment mechanisms within BRICS, reducing transaction costs without proposing an unrealistic single BRICS currency. 

Finally, cooperation should be rebuilt among universities, scientists, artists, students, and pilgrims. Relations between two ancient societies cannot be left entirely to soldiers, corporations, and diplomats. China and India do not have to agree on every issue. They must learn how to prevent their disagreements from obstructing the urgent needs of their peoples and the hopes placed in them by the rest of the Global South.