Modi Challenged Xi at His Own BRICS Summit—Diplomatic Disaster or India’s High-Risk Balancing Act?
Narendra Modi warned against weaponizing critical minerals with Xi Jinping in the room. Critics call it isolation; supporters call it strategic autonomy.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered one of the BRICS summit’s most closely watched lines with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the room: the weaponization of technology and critical minerals can obstruct shared progress. Because China dominates the processing of rare earths and has used export controls during geopolitical disputes, many observers heard an unmistakable message to Beijing.
Some Indian critics immediately called it a diplomatic disaster. In their telling, Modi alienated Washington without winning Chinese trust, then challenged China’s strongest economic lever at a summit Beijing increasingly shapes. A popular Hindi saying circulating online described him as belonging to neither side.
The quote is real. The conclusion of total isolation is not established.
Modi did not name China, and his language was framed as a principle for resilient, inclusive supply chains. The BRICS New Delhi Declaration itself called for reliable, diversified and fair critical-mineral supply chains while preserving states’ sovereign rights over resources. In that context, Modi’s warning was sharper than ceremonial diplomacy but not outside the summit’s agreed vocabulary.
China nevertheless sits at the center of the issue. It processes around 90% of the world’s rare earths and controls important stages of supply for magnets, electronics, electric vehicles and military technology. Export restrictions can impose costs on India, the United States, Europe and Japan. Beijing argues that controls protect national security and prevent foreign containment; import-dependent countries call them coercive.
India’s position is structurally uncomfortable. It competes with China along a disputed Himalayan border and restricts Chinese investment in sensitive sectors. Yet China is also India’s largest source of many industrial imports, with bilateral trade continuing at enormous scale. New Delhi participates in the Quad with the United States, Japan and Australia while refusing to become a formal American ally. It buys Russian energy, hosts BRICS and simultaneously courts Western manufacturing.
That is not necessarily diplomatic confusion. India calls it strategic autonomy: cooperating with different powers without accepting any one bloc’s discipline. The approach can expand room for maneuver, but it can also disappoint every partner. Washington wants closer alignment on China and Russia. Beijing wants India to resist U.S.-led containment. Moscow wants BRICS cohesion. India wants technology, capital, energy and security relationships with all three.
Critics are right that rhetoric has costs. If India publicly opposes mineral coercion but lacks alternative supplies, it exposes dependence without immediately reducing it. If Modi expects China to attend a summit while echoing a major U.S. complaint, Beijing can respond through customs delays, visas or investment restrictions.
Supporters answer that silence would be more costly. India’s manufacturing ambitions require predictable access to rare earths. Raising the issue inside BRICS, rather than only beside Western leaders, demonstrates that the bloc is not a Chinese alliance. It also gives smaller members permission to discuss vulnerabilities without choosing Washington.
The wider summit complicates the “disaster” label. Reuters reported that Xi and Modi met amid a cautious bilateral thaw. BRICS members adopted a substantial joint declaration despite their disagreements and presented common positions on sanctions, trade and global governance. China will chair the bloc next, giving both leaders incentives to manage rather than maximize tension.
The real test is policy. India must invest in extraction, refining, recycling and partnerships with resource-rich states. A speech cannot substitute for years of industrial development. Nor can Western friendship guarantee supply if American and European companies face the same Chinese bottlenecks.
India’s strategy also depends on whether Washington treats autonomy as partnership or disloyalty. If U.S. officials demand alignment while imposing tariffs or limiting technology, New Delhi gains reasons to repair ties with Beijing. If China uses rare earths to punish Indian speech, it validates Modi’s warning.
So the moment may be better understood as calculated discomfort. Modi used a Chinese-influenced forum to argue that no country—including China or the United States—should convert concentrated economic power into political obedience.
Domestic politics shapes the judgment as well. Modi must appear strong toward China after the Galwan clash while showing Indian businesses that diplomatic normalization can restore investment and supply. Opposition voices can portray any compromise as surrender and any criticism of Beijing as reckless. Xi faces his own constraint: rewarding Indian autonomy could loosen U.S. alignment, but appearing to yield under public pressure could weaken China’s coercive credibility. The summit remark therefore operated for several audiences at once, which makes a single winner-or-loser verdict too crude.
What to watch next
Will China retaliate, ignore the remark or incorporate it into BRICS language? Do Modi and Xi announce concrete trade or border measures? Can India build non-Chinese critical-mineral capacity fast enough to make strategic autonomy credible? And is India truly isolated—or is its willingness to frustrate every major power precisely how it avoids becoming subordinate to any of them?