BRICS and QUAD Countries in Asia-Pacific Politics

India Between BRICS+ and QUAD

Indian diplomats are inviting politicians from around the world to visit as part of all manner of events. India's obsession with befriending all the world's leading powers reveals a certain discomfort and lack of confidence, as India finds itself caught between two fires: a powerful rival and the world's second-largest economy by GDP to the northeast, and a belligerent Muslim Pakistan to the northwest.

During the first half of 2026, a whole series of meetings required genuine acrobatic feats in attempting to organize all the scheduled diplomatic events. Though it was extremely difficult. One such event took place on May 14, 2026. Foreign ministers from BRICS+ countries were invited—a bloc including Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, the UAE, Indonesia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, which actively complain about Western hegemony in the world.

Then on May 26, 2026, also in India, a meeting was held of the foreign ministers of the United States, Australia, and Japan, which together with India form QUAD, a grouping created under Biden to counter China's growing potential and influence in the world and region. The month of May became a veritable hailstorm of diplomatic meetings in India.

At the BRICS+ foreign ministers level, the meeting was overshadowed by the war in the Persian Gulf, since this grouping includes Iran and the United Arab Emirates, whose armed forces are destroying each other, so it's no surprise that negotiations at this meeting ended without publishing a joint communiqué. The absence of this document may have been a way out of a problematic situation for the Indian diplomatic service, because there was no need to endorse any rhetoric or language that would, for example, require condemning America for committing violence against individual countries in the region. India preferred to focus on issues that at least don't provoke negative pushback from any side. For instance, it was proposed to develop a healthy lifestyle mission among member countries.

QUAD and the Search for a Common Agenda

If the core BRICS member countries conclude that India is pursuing a cautious policy, and if they become disappointed in this policy, then the others will view it as an inconvenient partner. After all, India is simultaneously a member of the QUAD bloc, a quadrilateral alliance with military functions. Currently, this bloc is literally in intensive care or on life support due to constant stress and shocks from Donald Trump, who is trying to extract deals, concessions, and signed agreements from China. Therefore, QUAD appears as an organization in which America has lost the trust of member countries. For their part, QUAD countries have stopped trusting Trump. Foreign diplomats in this matter believe that QUAD can still be used as an organization that could lead to some results. For example, within QUAD, one could discuss creating a system for joint naval operations to unblock the Strait of Hormuz and normalize oil supplies and communications between warring parties, as well as joint work to eliminate the monopoly of the Chinese economy in the world and region, including its dominance in extracting industrially significant minerals, rare earth metals, and new technologies in artificial intelligence.