“Following the Doklam stand-off, there was a lot of talk in India that Modi might not go to the summit,” said Dr Rajan Kumar, associate professor of international relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

The key difference this time is the intensity of the conflict, which has produced the first combat fatalities since 1962. Experts say relations between both countries will go past a point of no return if there is no permanent solution to the border dispute.

“Right now the mood in India will not allow business as usual with China, in any sector,” said Madhav Nalapat, a professor of geopolitics at India’s Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

For the past decade, BRICS has served as a key platform for cooperation between India and China. It was initially established in 2009 without South Africa, which joined the next year. The first joint statement made following the 2010 summit opened by expressing support for “transformations in global governance” and “multipolar diplomacy”.

This year’s BRICS summit is expected to start on November 13 in St Petersburg, Russia, after Covid-19 prompted Moscow to give up holding the summit in July as originally planned.

“BRICS is hinged on this broader idea of emerging market solidarity, of not letting the Americans and Europeans dictate rules of global finance,” said Matt Ferchen, head of global China research at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin.

Regional security has usually been a secondary item in the BRICS agenda. Joint statements after every BRICS summit have always presented unified stances against global terrorism or civil war in the Middle East and parts of Africa, but not much else.

India seeks to boost air defences to match China amid rising border tensions 

“When BRICS was first founded, many sceptics thought the border disputes between India and China would be a big roadblock but the grouping has succeeded precisely by avoiding these kinds of thorny bilateral issues,” said Niu Haibin, a senior fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

However, some say the BRICS coalition is already playing a role in the present border dispute.

Li Xing, professor of international relations at Aalborg University in Denmark, said Russia’s role as a mediator in this conflict was because of its affiliation with China and India as a member of BRICS.

China-India border clash another obstacle keeping New Delhi from RCEP

“This isn’t saying that these talks were BRICS talks but that they took place under a BRICS framework,” he said. “Otherwise why was the US or another European country not invited to help negotiate, but rather Russia.”

After the conclusion of the RIC forum, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow “never had a goal to help India and China develop their bilateral ties”.

However, Kumar from Jawaharlal Nehru University said Russia was clearly repeating the role it played after the Doklam stand-off. Kumar said that during conversations with Russian diplomats in 2017, he became aware that Russia had played a crucial role in easing tensions ahead of the BRICS summit.

“Through backchannel diplomacy, Russia, India and China resolved the issues and the BRICS meeting took place,” he said.

Kumar said that if the current military conflict did not ease, the group’s credibility would take a major hit.

“You cannot claim you are a global power willing to take on global governance while fighting on your border over minor issues,” Kumar said.

Li of Aalborg University agreed, adding that China’s staunch support of BRICS lay in the awareness that “the United States was able to shape the world order through international institutions and by forcing other countries to play by their rules of the game”.

“China’s bid for a leading role on the international stage is partly dependent on the continuity of BRICS,” Li said. “BRICS is one of China’s babies. If it disappears, it will be a big blow to China’s foreign policy.”