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Xi Jinping will not attend the Brics summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, Chinese officials have said, marking his first absence at the high table of the world’s leading emerging economies.
Beijing has informed host Brazil of Mr Xi’s absence, citing a scheduling conflict, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.
The 17th annual Brics summit is scheduled for 6-7 July.
China will likely send premier Li Qiang to the summit instead. He similarly attended the G20 summit in India in 2023 in Mr Xi’s stead.
Brics was founded as Bric by Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2009 and South Africa joined the following year. The bloc has since admitted Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the UAE as full members and invited Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan as “partner countries”.
Chinese officials noted that Mr Xi had already met with Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva twice in less than a year, seemingly suggesting this made his presence at the upcoming summit less urgent. They met at the G20 summit in the South American country last November and then at the China-Celac forum in Beijing this past May, the SCMP reported.
The report speculated that the Brazilian president’s invitation for a state dinner to Indian prime minister Narendra Modi could have sparked Mr Xi’s withdrawal as it could have made the Chinese leader appear as a “supporting actor”.
The Chinese president has never missed a Brics summit since taking office and has participated in every edition since 2013.
For two years during the Covid pandemic, he participated in the summit virtually.
In response to reports about Mr Xi skipping the summit, the Brazilian foreign ministry said it “will not comment on internal deliberations of foreign delegations”.
The last-minute pull out, however, has reportedly left Brazil upset.
The Brazilian president had travelled to Beijing last month in “a gesture of goodwill” and in “expectation that the Chinese president would reciprocate” by attending the Rio summit, an anonymous source told the SCMP.
While refusing to officially confirm its leader’s absence, Beijing pledged its diplomatic support to Brazil’s presidency of the talks.
“Information about participation in the summit will be shared at the appropriate time,” foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told Brazilian newspaper Folha.
He added that China sought to “promote deeper cooperation” among Brics members.
“In a volatile and turbulent world, Brics nations maintain their strategic resolve and work together for global peace, stability and development,” Mr Guo said.
