3 min learnJun 26, 2026 06:20 AM IST
First printed on: Jun 26, 2026 at 06:20 AM IST
On June 22, NSA Ajit Doval met Chinese language Overseas Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the sixteenth BRICS NSA assembly in New Delhi. The divergences in worldviews have been laborious to overlook. Delhi spoke of “steady, predictable and constructive bilateral relations” and “gradual normalisation” since Galwan. Beijing, in contrast, scaled the identical assembly as much as a “Global South” second: Wang declared that “the Global South, together with China and India, is collectively rising”, and that the 2 international locations should “speed up the modernisation means of the Global South” collectively. 5 days earlier, that actual vocabulary had been packaged into China’s new White Paper on international governance.
The White Paper articulates three approaches to the Global South. First is its revitalisation of an thought {that a} Global South that excludes China is a pseudo-proposition. Second is its emphasis on China’s “win-win” and “harmonious” strategy to the perceived grouping. Third is its usurpation of Delhi’s most popular metaphor on appearing as a bridge between the “Global North” and the “Global South”. Solely, the White Paper frames it as China in search of to “synergise” North-South cooperation.
China has seen India and the West as promoters of unique blocs that undermine its Global South identification. The White Paper’s most outstanding thesis formalises that proposition — “China will all the time be a member of the Global South.” It contends that the monopolisation of worldwide affairs by “a small variety of international locations” is not acceptable to Beijing, and so it is going to emerge because the drive selling inclusion and accessibility for the economies of this perceived grouping. India’s choice to conduct three “Voice of Global South Summits” with out China’s participation has irked Beijing probably the most. It was proper earlier than the second summit that Global Instances popularised the concept such a summit with out China was a pseudo-proposition.
Via the White Paper, Beijing makes an attempt to set itself aside in its strategy to the Global South by calling for “win-win cooperation,” pitting it in opposition to the West’s, and even India’s, “opportunism”. The instance Chinese language analysts like retired PLA officer Zhou Bo have cited is Delhi wrangling with Colombo to halt the docking of Chinese language vessels at Sri Lanka’s ports. Zhou argued in 2024 that whereas India “compelled [Sri Lanka’s] authorities to ban Chinese language ships”, China welcomed it into BRICS and the SCO. In his conception, that India is an equal in BRICS, or that it acted in its nationwide curiosity when coping with Colombo, are unacceptable realities. Zhou additionally superior the framing that India and China ought to operate as “Global South anchors”, not energy opponents. That has now travelled from a retired PLA officer’s op-ed to Wang Yi’s speaking factors. The precedent, nonetheless, as evident from Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring round Hambantota or the suspension of the BRI-financed CPEC’s signature tasks underneath fiscal stress in Pakistan, doesn’t replicate the conduct of the magnanimous actor that China presents itself as. Delhi’s aim ought to therefore be to not compete with Beijing’s rhetoric word-for-word, however to showcase its empirical file in Global South fora.
The author is workers analysis analyst, geostrategy programme, Takshashila Establishment
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