Narendra Modi along with ASEAN Secretary General, Dr. Kao Kim Hournem and other dignitaries during the 21st ASEAN-India Summit in Vientiane in 2024. | Photo credit: ANI
India’s Quad-BRICS balance will come to the fore at the upcoming Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur from October 26-28, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the East Asia Summit (EAS) along with US President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
Leaders or representatives of China, Russia, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand are expected at the EAS, while Brazilian President Lula da Silva and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will attend as observers for ASEAN-related summits. This means Mr Modi will have a chance to meet all Quad counterparts as well as key BRICS founding members as India prepares to host both summits next year if he travels to Kuala Lumpur this week. While the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has yet to confirm Mr Modi’s attendance, Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan announced last week that he would attend ASEAN-related summits, including the EAS, and government officials said Mr Modi was “likely” to attend.
India was supposed to host the Quad Summit this year, but with Indo-US tensions overshadowing the past few months, officials have hinted that the Quad Summit could be held in 2026. India will also take over the BRICS presidency and host the summit of the 11-nation grouping of emerging economies in 2026, as India is often the only common factor against India. includes the US and its allies, while the other includes Russia and China. Plus President Trump’s trade tariffs, threats to India for buying Russian oil, sanctions against Iran (a new BRICS member) and threats to impose 100% tariffs on BRICS members who he accuses of supporting the common currency to fight the US dollar.
“The downward trend in global economic growth, uncertainty in investment flows and interest rates, unilateral measures and supply chain disruptions define the current international economic landscape,” MEA Secretary (Economic Relations) Sudhakar Dalela said at a conference organized by CUTS International and Chintan Research Foundation in Delhi last week.
“India’s BRICS chairmanship comes at a time when the world is going through a series of challenges that are particularly affecting the countries of the Global South,” he said, describing India’s plans to host the 20th edition of the BRICS summit.
Meanwhile, Indian and US officials working to arrange a meeting between Mr Modi and Mr Trump on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit have also discussed scheduling a Quad summit, but no date has yet emerged, multiple diplomatic sources said. If the US-India-Australia-Japan summit cannot take place this year, as seems more likely, it will be the second year in a row that India-US tensions have derailed New Delhi’s plans. Prime Minister Modi invited the Quad leaders to a summit in January 2024, timed for Republic Day, but then US President Joe Biden declined the invitation due to tensions surrounding the Pannun case, in which Indian government officials were linked to an assassination plot in the US Mr. Biden subsequently hosted the Quad Summit in September 2024, the new US25 government would be more confident in the US. to be able to set a date for the summit this year, but Mr. Trump’s mercurial decisions on tariffs, the India-US trade deal and his insistence on a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for his role in the India-Pakistan conflict, among others, have frozen talks on the issue.
At a closed-door meeting on the Quad in Delhi organized by Jindal Global University this week, which included current and former government officials, experts said the US president’s “America First” doctrine was now a “Quad endurance test”. Tariffs and trade wars are “sabotaging the goals of the Quad”, they said, including supply chain resilience in pharmaceuticals and minerals, which were meant to reduce the region’s risk from certain geographies. In addition, another challenge has been the US administration’s decision to withdraw from climate change commitments, cut vaccine research aid and specific Quad commitments, including the Cancer Moonshot announced just last year, said participants in the Chatham House Rules discussion.
As a result, while Mr. Modi’s visit to Kuala Lumpur is planned primarily for ASEAN-related meetings with Southeast Asian leaders, including a review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA), his schedule may also be crowded with discussions on the way forward for the two important groupings that India will host in the coming months – the Quad and the BRICS.
Published – 19 Oct 2025 21:53 IST
