China urges BRICS to unite on minerals, AI and global security
China used a BRICS security meeting in New Delhi to push mineral, AI and health coordination, tying batteries and defense supply chains to geopolitical leverage.
China pressed BRICS to treat strategic minerals, artificial intelligence and global instability as connected security issues, using a New Delhi meeting to argue that the bloc should coordinate more closely on the resources and technologies that now shape industrial power. The message carried beyond diplomacy: control over mineral processing and supply chains affects batteries, semiconductors, defense hardware and the energy transition.
Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, attended the 16th Meeting of BRICS National Security Advisors and High Representatives on National Security in India on June 22-23 and called on the bloc to strengthen cooperation on strategic mineral resources. He also urged BRICS countries to respond together to challenges from Ebola to AI, to help address global energy and food security problems, and to oppose the weaponization of outer space. Wang said the group should keep AI risks under close oversight, uphold multilateralism, oppose unilateralism and protectionism, and back dialogue and political solutions to disputes.
The timing mattered. India assumed the BRICS chairship for 2026 on January 1, and the expanded bloc now has 11 full members: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. In May, BRICS foreign ministers met in New Delhi on May 14-15 but failed to issue a joint statement because of disagreement over West Asia, a reminder that the larger grouping still struggles to find consensus even as it broadens its agenda. The chair’s statement after that meeting reaffirmed the BRICS strategic partnership across political and security, economic and financial, and cultural and people-to-people pillars.
The bilateral backdrop added another layer. Ajit Doval, India’s national security adviser, met Wang on the sidelines of the security meeting, and the two sides reviewed bilateral ties and described progress toward gradual normalization after the border tensions that flared in 2020. Wang also met Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu in New Delhi, underscoring the geopolitical symbolism of the gathering.
India’s next move will extend the same agenda into energy policy. New Delhi is set to host the 11th BRICS Energy Ministers’ Meeting in Gurugram on June 25-26, keeping strategic minerals, supply security and processing power at the center of the bloc’s industrial and geopolitical calculations.
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