“The attendance by the UN Secretary general, Guterres, confirms their peaceful and cooperative intentions within the multilateral system. To the dismay of the ideological critics of BRICS no incendiary statements were heard or written,” Raffone said.

“BRICS underline that the ‘system’ is not an end but a tool. Therefore, the ‘system’ should be serving all people on Earth without hindering their legitimate aspirations to preserve their identity. In this sense, BRICS oppose the dramatic twist imposed to the world institutions in late 1970s with the neoliberal ideology that sought shredding identities into the convenient market-driven categories of debtor/creditor, consumer/producer, and, of course, good/bad guys and people,” the observer summed up.

“Both sides must strengthen interaction and cooperation and properly resolve existing contradictions and disagreements,” Xi said at the meeting, while Modi expressed India’s support for China’s presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, coming up in 2025.

The two leaders reviewed the state of bilateral relations from a strategic and long-term perspective. They expressed the view that stable bilateral relations between India and China, the two most populous countries in the world, will have a positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity, and emphasized that with maturity and wisdom and mutual respect for each other’s sensitivities, interests, concerns and aspirations, the two countries can have peaceful, stable and beneficial bilateral relations, Misri said.

“The Kazan Declaration is a road map for BRICS countries because it combines ‘common interests’ with ‘strategic partnership’,” Dr. Chenoy pointed out, contrasting the bloc’s approach to Western-led pacts and agreements, where “interests” are reserved for Western countries, “and the term strategic means the threat or possible use of force.”

“This is in direct contrast to Bretton Woods way of functioning, [which] is intrusive - in that it directs control of economies, is unilateral whereby countries are left with neither voice or choice of what direction their economies can take,” the professor said.