Xi attends BRICS summit, fails to appear for key speech

Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 landed in South Africa on Monday for the 15th BRICS Summit. The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa will meet in Johannesburg from August 22 to 24, although Vladimir Putin will appear virtually, to avoid obligating South Africa to arrest him because of International Criminal Court obligations.

This is only Xi’s second foreign trip so far in 2023 after he visited Russia in March.

Xi was greeted at the airport by a delegation led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, with whom he conducted bilateral talks. Xi made four proposals for expanding bilateral relations. The two sides issued a joint statement that “reaffirmed their respect and support for each other’s sustainable social-economic development paths and just transitions” but made no mention of recent Chinese foreign policy initiatives such as the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI), and the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI).

The (missing) king’s speech

Xi was scheduled to address the closing ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum yesterday, but despite attending the BRICS dinner later in the evening, he unexpectedly did not appear to deliver his speech. Instead, Xi’s speech was read out by Commerce Minister Wáng Wéntāo 王文涛.

No reason for Xi’s absence was provided. It appeared to be a last-minute alteration, however, as state media reports were published as though he had delivered the speech himself, and the full speech on the MFA website still bears the words “Address by H.E. Xi Jinping.”

The speech, as read out by Wang, was critical of the U.S., which is called “some country” that is “obsessed with maintaining its hegemony” and that has “gone out of its way to cripple emerging markets and developing countries.” Xi’s speech also mentioned the GCI, GSI, and GDI, and the word “global” appeared 17 times, including “global garden” and “global multipolarity.”

It is highly unusual for China’s leaders to skip important public appearances such as this that have a global audience. Xi’s non-appearance and (non-explanation for it) caused speculation as to whether he was suffering from ill health, especially as there have been periods this year when Xi was not seen in public.

This was the second unexplained absence by a Chinese official this year after former foreign minister Qín Gāng 秦刚 missed the foreign ministers BRICS meeting in Cape Town in early June. Qin has not been seen for months, and Vice Foreign Minister Mǎ Zhāoxù 马朝旭 attended the event in his stead.

After the conclusion of the Business Forum, a post appeared on the Weibo account of the MFA stating, “President Xi Jinping delivered a speech…at the closing ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum in Johannesburg.” MFA spokesperson Huá Chūnyíng 华春莹 posted a picture of the crowded conference room on X (Twitter) along with the sentence “Xi delivered an address at the closing ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum 2023.”

At the MFA regular news briefing earlier today, the ministry spokesperson sidestepped a number of questions on Xi’s absence at the speech.

Xi did, however, give a speech in person today to a general meeting of the leaders of the BRICS countries.

There has been much speculation that the BRICS meeting would see announcements of new members of the grouping, and of some kind of plan for de-dollarization, but so far, there has been no word on these from Johannesburg.