Chinese President Xi calls for accelerating expansion of BRICS advocates political and security cooperation

Johannesburg, Aug 23 (PTI) Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday called for accelerating the expansion of the BRICS grouping besides efforts to jointly fend off risks by increasing the political and security cooperation among the countries of the five-nation bloc.
    Xi, who skipped his attendance at the BRICS Business Forum on Tuesday sparking speculation about his absence, attended the Summit here on Wednesday where he pitched for more political and security cooperation among the member countries.
    He was the only leader absent from the BRICS Business Forum on Tuesday, with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reading a speech in his place that had a hardline message apparently aimed at the US.
    Asked why Xi had not attended the forum, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin sidestepped the question, telling reporters in Beijing on Wednesday that Xi’s speech had been delivered.
    While his speech at the Business Forum hit out at the US saying that “some country, obsessed with maintaining its hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the emerging and developing countries”, he said in his speech at the summit that "the Cold War mentality is still haunting our world, and the geopolitical situation is getting tense."
    He said development should not be a privilege reserved for a few but a right for all countries, and he supported the inclusion of more nations in BRICS.
    "I am glad to see the growing enthusiasm of developing countries about participating in BRICS cooperation. And quite a number of them have applied to join … we need to accelerate the BRICS expansion process to bring more countries into the BRICS family,” Xi said, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
    The BRICS countries should keep to the direction of peaceful development, and consolidate the BRICS strategic partnership, Xi said, adding that members should make good use of the BRICS Foreign Ministers' Meeting, the Meeting of High Representatives on National Security and other mechanisms, support each other on issues concerning their respective core interests, and enhance coordination on major international and regional issues.
    "We need to tender good offices on hotspot issues, pushing for political settlement and lowering the temperature," he was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
    Noting that artificial intelligence (AI) is a new area of development, which not only can bring huge development dividends but also contains risks and challenges, Xi said the BRICS countries have agreed to launch the AI Study Group at an early date.
    "We need to enable the study group to play its full role, further expand cooperation on AI, and step up information exchanges and technological cooperation," he said.
    The BRICS members should also jointly fend off risks, promote the establishment of an international mechanism for universal participation, and develop AI governance frameworks and standards with broad-based consensus, so as to continuously make AI technologies more secure, reliable, controllable and equitable, he added.
    He also called for efforts to deepen business and financial cooperation among BRICS countries to boost economic growth.
    Xi said the world economic recovery remains shaky, and challenges for developing countries are even more formidable, hampering their efforts to realize the Sustainable Development Goals.
    "Development is an inalienable right of all countries, not a privilege reserved for a few," Xi said.
    He called on BRICS countries to be fellow companions on the journey of development and revitalisation and oppose decoupling and supply chain disruption as well as economic coercion.
    BRICS countries should focus on practical cooperation, particularly in such fields as digital economy, green development, and supply chain, and bolster economic, trade and financial exchanges, Xi said.
    He added that China will set up a China-BRICS Science and Innovation Incubation Park for the New Era to support the deployment of innovation results.
    The BRICS bloc - comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - brings together five of the largest developing countries of the world, representing 41 per cent of the global population, 24 per cent of the global GDP and 16 per cent of the global trade.
    Over 20 heads of state from Africa and the Middle East have also been invited to attend the summit. A number of them have applied to become members of BRICS, which is one of the matters on the agenda for the Summit.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)