Briefing MONTHLY #100 | September 2026

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While we are still a couple of months away from Summit Season proper, there was plenty of pomp and ceremony this month when leaders of the world’s largest nations came together. With any deliverables agreed in advance, these meetings are all about spectacle and signalling.

When US President Donald Trump took the unusual step of greeting China’s Xi Jinping in person when he alighted at Joint Base Andrews, the footage was blasted over China’s social media. The effusive welcome was helpful in communicating Beijing’s message that it is no way subservient to Washington. However, given the need for action on urgent matters – humanity’s future under AI, for example – the lack of substance prompted some to describe the visit as ‘diplotainment’. Meanwhile, Xi’s visit to New Delhi a few weeks earlier for a BRICS Summit was a reminder of the growing geopolitical clout of Global South, albeit one that papers over significant differences among the group’s biggest members (see Neighbourhood Watch).

Closer to home, there was plenty of discussion of China at another type of Summit. The annual Australian Financial Review-Asia Society Australia Asia Summit in Sydney featured Asia Society Global President Dr Kevin Rudd, a global expert on Xi Jinping (see Asian Nation). 

Finally, this month marks the 100th issue of Briefing MONTHLY. Founding editor Greg Earl has pulled together some highlights of our coverage since he published the first BM in 2017. Across the years, one theme stands out: while Asia’s transformation has been relentless, Australia’s response has oscillated between ambition, hesitation and rediscovery.

Thanks for reading,

Emma Connors
Briefing MONTHLY editor

Xi Jinping’s trip to India in mid-September for the annual BRICS Summit was his first visit to the country since tension over the Himalayan border spilled over into violence in the Galwan Valley in 2020, killing troops on both sides. This dispute has a long history and is unlikely to be solved any time soon, given India and China have different views on where the border – known as Line of Actual Control – should be located. The 2020 flare-up fanned anti-China sentiment, with effigies of Xi burnt in the streets along with Chinese flags. There were also calls to boycott Chinese goods.

So the Chinese President’s visit was significant, however analysts caution the bilateral relationship has ‘thawed’ rather than taken a major turn.

Various aspects of the bilateral trade relationship, including China’s stranglehold on supply of the active ingredients required for pharmaceuticals, continue to motivate New Delhi to broaden its links to other markets. The two also have different views on a preferred world order, analysts suggest, with China and Russia keen supporters of an anti-Western geopolitical bloc while India and Brazil view BRICS as a way to stay neutral in a multipolar world.

Given these differences, it was noteworthy that BRICS leaders, including Russian president Vladimir Putin, managed to agree sufficiently to issue a joint declaration at New Delhi.

In the last quarter century BRICS has grown from being a term used by a Goldman Sachs economist to an 11-nation intergovernmental group that includes three of the world’s four largest countries by land area and population.

That economist, Jim O’Neill, coined the acronym BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) back in 2001, to refer to the four nations that could dominate the global economy by 2050. The four liked the term so much they held the first BRIC Summit in 2009 though few thought it would amount to anything much and indeed, it was a sideshow for the first few years.