Not a lot has been revealed so far about what exactly China intends for BRICS-Plus to be, though experts such as Valdai Club's Yaroslav Lissovolik have postulated that it could see the BRICS members merge their respective regional integration organizations into this framework in order to strengthen multipolarity.
This would imply that China's One Belt One Road (OBOR) global vision of New Silk Road connectivity would become an official component of BRICS, which could be troublesome because India has thus far refused to participate in the project. Furthermore, if Beijing's flagship $60 billion OBOR investment of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is promoted in any way through this platform, including through Pakistan's prospective inclusion in the BRICS-Plus format, then India would surely object to this move and find a way to distance itself from the initiative.
It's perhaps for this reason why China is "playing it safe" by inviting Guinea, Mexico, Tajikistan and Thailand to the upcoming BRICS summit instead, intentionally choosing countries that won't draw India's ire and consequently diminish the prospects for further multilateral economic-financial cooperation. Chinese-Indian relations are at a very sensitive point right now after the two-month-long drama over the Donglang Plateau, also known as Doklam in India, so it makes sense why China is treading carefully.
All eyes will therefore be on President Xi and Prime Minister Modi to see if they've truly surmounted the problems between their two countries which have plagued bilateral relations all summer and drove them to their lowest level since the 1962 war. The emerging Multipolar World Order needs stable, predictable, and trusted relations between China and India in order to sustain its gains in changing the Western-led global system, so it's important for both leaders to find a way to move past what happened on that plateau.
China and India are on very close terms with Russia, which can serve to "break the ice" between them if there's any lingering chill in their relations when they all meet next week, so the odds are that the upcoming summit will end up being a success in strengthening multipolarity, but only so long as the Asian members of this economic-financial grouping leave their geopolitical disputes out of this event.
Andrew Korybko is joined by Saikat Bhattacharyya, Research scholar in economics at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, and Dong Chao, Chinese political commentator.
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