BRICS Summit and cancellation of Rubio's South Korea, Japan visits

Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) experts preview the BRICS summit taking place this weekend in Brazil and comment on Secretary of State Marco Rubio's decision to cancel the Japan and South Korea legs of next week's trip to Asia.

Emma Chanlett-Avery - Director for Political-Security Affairs

Rubio’s abrupt cancelation of stops in Tokyo and Seoul is the latest in a series of bad news for the Asian alliances. The impasse in tariff negotiations, Ishiba and Lee’s decision to skip the NATO summit, Japan’s pull-out of the 2+2, and with no Lee-Trump meeting on the schedule, the future of the alliances is clouded with uncertainty. Instead of a fence-mending visit, the last-minute cancelation sends perilous signals to the allies.

The plan for Rubio to visit Tokyo and Seoul en route to Malaysia was ill-conceived from the start. The scheduled stopover dates straddled the July 9th tariff deadline – crystalizing the very issue that is straining relations with Japan and South Korea.

Farwa Aamer - Director of South Asia Initiatives

President Xi Jinping's decision not to attend the BRICS summit in Brazil means that there will be no opportunity for a Modi-Xi one-on-one. The last BRICS summit in Russia was a landmark moment in India-China relations, marking the first formal Modi-Xi meeting in five years and a breakthrough in discussions on the Line of Actual Control. While there has been consistent dialogue between both sides since, the leader-level interaction will have to wait for now.

Also, given that both Xi and Putin will be notably absent, PM Modi will be the most prominent world leader present at the summit. There is, however, an opportunity for a meeting with the Indonesian and Iranian counterparts on the sidelines.

The summit is taking place at a complex time, where trade decisions coming out of Washington are a matter of global focus and will likely cast a shadow, plus the recent Iran-Israel conflict, as well as India-Pakistan tensions, also loom large. It remains to be seen how much the summit, and the organization's expanded nature, can achieve in terms of a unanimously agreed-upon agenda for cooperation amid differences in opinions and positions on regional and global issues.