Xi Jinping favors Trump over Lula by not attending BRICS.

Would Chinese President Xi Jinping be making a strategic mistake by not attending the BRICS meeting next week, which will be chaired by President Lula?

The absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin will also be felt, but this is understandably justified, as he could be arrested by order of the International Criminal Court on charges of kidnapping Ukrainian children during the war in Ukraine.

Likewise, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will not attend, likely in solidarity with the decision of his two main allies to support US aggression against his country, in order to prevent Israel's defeat at the hands of the Iranians.

Without these three important members of BRICS, a group of 11 countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran, and Indonesia), the bloc's most important meeting, in 2025, will be politically ineffective.

Trump gains strength.

The obvious consequence of this political weakening, which destabilizes Lula, is the strengthening of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, who considers BRICS the main threat to the destabilization of the dollar in international trade relations.

Reasons for Xi Jinping's significant absences: conflicting schedules.

This is questionable, because there would supposedly be no more relevant international event than the BRICS meeting, considered an emerging international force that surpasses the G7 in effective economic power, thanks to China's weight as a new world power that threatens American hegemony.

There's no shortage of speculation.

According to diplomatic sources, Jinping and Putin are not upset with Lula for his recent positions.

1 – attended the G7 meeting, an opponent of BRICS, as a guest, in Canada;

2 – In Canadian lands, a minefield for China and Russia, he met with the bastard president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, an adversary of Putin and Xi;

3 – It did not invite Venezuela – an ally of Russia and China, and holder of the world's largest oil reserves – to the BRICS meeting, so as not to antagonize Washington;

4 – Lula declared in France, where he recently visited, that he disagrees with Russia's justification for entering the war against Ukraine for preventive reasons.

Therefore, on the eve of the important meeting in Rio de Janeiro next week, a web of international intrigue is in the air, suggesting that Lula has been more inclined towards the Western bloc, led by Trump, from whom he has maintained a formal distance, than towards Xi Jinping and Putin throughout this year.

Furthermore, the Chinese leader is reportedly unhappy with Lula because the Brazilian leader will be hosting the President of India, whose relations with China are strained due to historically known factors stemming from border disputes.

From the Chinese point of view, it would not be well received to show deference to Indian leadership while relegating Chinese leadership to the background during the BRICS summit.

MULTILATERALISM

Ultimately, these are conjectures that may or may not be resolved, depending on the positions that BRICS, under Lula's leadership, will adopt to establish a strong presence on the national stage, at a time when Donald Trump, as head of the American empire, fueled by far-right rhetoric aggressive towards democracy, threatens multilateralism as an alternative to American imperialist unilateralism.

The fact is, however, that without the presence of the important Chinese and Russian leaders at the international meeting, President Lula is suffering political damage, especially given Xi Jinping's absence.

From Washington's point of view, Lula is politically weakened as the rotating president of BRICS, which would justify American efforts to pressure him to prioritize relations with the United States and not with China and Russia.

Symptomatically, this Monday, news emerged in The Economist magazine that Lula is losing international prestige because he is abandoning the West, while, at the same time, he is worn down and weakened internally, according to opinion polls, etc.

UNDER ATTACK FROM THE RIGHT AND FAR RIGHT

Therefore, would the presence of the Chinese leader be opportune, as a counterpoint to the mounting pressure from Washington against the Brazilian leader, who faces resistance from the pro-Trump right and far-right in Congress, aimed at undermining a minority government in parliament?

It is impossible not to conclude that Jinping's absence exposes inconvenient – ​​albeit not explicitly stated – divergences within BRICS, which imperialist diplomacy will exploit for profit.

Certainly, Washington will double down on pressure, strengthening the internal political currents, both pro-right and far-right, anti-Lula, which are entering election campaign mode, in defense of the approval of political initiatives favorable to a better distribution of national income, against which the adversaries are uniting to defeat the head of government.

By leaving Lula alone at the BRICS meeting, Xi Jinping favors internal and external adversaries who are uniting to prevent Lula's re-election, which, if it happens, harms BRICS itself, since Trump leads the right and far-right in Brazil to distance him from China and Russia.