PM Modi to face Quad, BRICS leaders at ASEAN meet next week

India’s balancing act between the Quad and BRICS will come to the fore at the upcoming Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur from October 26-28, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the East Asia Summit (EAS) along with U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

Leaders or representatives of China, Russia, Japan, India, Australia, and New Zealand are expected at the EAS, while Brazil President Lula da Silva and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will attend as observers at the ASEAN-related summits. This means Mr. Modi will have the chance to meet all counterparts from the Quad and key founder members of BRICS as well, as India prepares to host both summits in the next year, if he does travel to Kuala Lumpur this week. While the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has not so far confirmed Mr. Modi’s participation, Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan announced last week that he would attend the ASEAN-related summits, including the EAS, and government officials said Mr. Modi was “likely” to attend. 

India was meant to be the host of the Quad Summit this year, but with India-U.S. tensions overshadowing the past few months, officials have indicated the Quad Summit could be held in 2026. India will also take over as chair of the BRICS, and host the summit of the 11-nation grouping of emerging economies in 2026. India is the only common factor between the two groupings often antithetical to each other, as one includes the U.S. and its allies, while the other includes Russia and China. In addition, President Trump’s trade tariffs, threats against India for buying Russian oil, sanctions on Iran (a new BRICS member), and threats to slap 100% tariffs on the BRICS members that he accuses of backing a common currency to counter the U.S. dollar, have added to the strain. 

“The downward trend in global economic growth, uncertainty in investment flows and interest rates, unilateral measures and supply chain disruptions have come to define the current international economic landscape,” MEA Secretary (Economic Relations) Sudhakar Dalela told a conference organised by the Chintan Research Foundation in Delhi last week. 

“India’s BRICS chairship comes at a time when the world is navigating through multiple challenges, particularly affecting the Global South countries,” he said, describing India’s plans to host the summit in the 20th year of BRICS.

Meanwhile, Indian and American officials working on setting up the meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump at the sidelines of the ASEAN summit, have also been discussing scheduling the Quad summit, but no date has emerged thus far, a number of diplomatic sources said. If the U.S.-India-Australia-Japan summit cannot be held this year, as is looking more likely, it will be the second year in a row that India-U.S. tensions will have derailed New Delhi’s plans. Prime Minister Modi had invited Quad leaders to a summit in January 2024, timed with Republic Day, but the invitation was declined by then-U.S. President Joe Biden amidst a strain over the Pannun case in which Indian government officials were linked to an assassination plot in the U.S. Mr. Biden subsequently hosted the Quad Summit in September 2024 in the U.S. With a new U.S. administration in 2025, the government had been more confident it would be able to fix a date for the summit this year, but Mr. Trump’s mercurial decisions on tariffs, the India-U.S. trade agreement, and his insistence on a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for his role in the India-Pakistan conflict, amongst others, have frozen talks on the issue.

At a closed-door session on the Quad in Delhi this week, organised by the Jindal Global University, which included present and former government officials, experts said that the U.S. President’s ‘America first’ doctrine now posed a “test to Quad resilience”. Tariffs and trade wars “sabotage Quad goals”, they said, including supply chain resilience in pharmaceuticals and minerals that were meant to de-risk the region from certain geographies. In addition, the U.S. administration’s decisions to withdraw from climate change commitments, slashing aid for vaccine research and specific Quad commitments, including the Cancer Moonshot announced just last year, were another challenge, participants at the discussion held under the Chatham House Rules said.

As a result, while Mr. Modi’s visit to Kuala Lumpur is planned primarily for ASEAN-related meetings with South East Asian leaders, including the review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA), his schedule may also be crowded with discussions on the way forward on the two important groupings India will host in the upcoming months — the Quad, and BRICS.