Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on Xi Jinping BRICS Middle East allies to back a permanent ceasefire and a two-state solution, telling the bloc’s summit in New Delhi that the conflict in the region ‘has caused severe losses to the people of the region and is not in the common interest of the international community.’
The 18th BRICS Summit took place in New Delhi on 12 September 2026, according to the Chinese Government Official Website. Xi used the occasion to set out China’s position on the Middle East in direct terms, stressing that all parties should ‘adhere to the direction of a political solution and promote a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.’
Xi Jinping’s BRICS Middle East address in full context
Speaking from a Google translation of a transcript provided by the Chinese government, Xi said the Palestinian question ‘has always been at the core of the Middle East issue’ and pressed for the implementation of the two-state solution with Israel. He framed China’s involvement as a collective responsibility rather than a unilateral move. ‘China is willing to work with BRICS members to play its due role in achieving peace and tranquility in the Middle East and the Gulf region,’ he said.
Xi’s remarks came as part of what appears to have been an active two-day presence at the summit. According to Friends of Socialist China, he delivered a second statement the following day, on 13 September, titled ‘Cementing the Foundation for BRICS Cooperation and Bolstering the Strength of the Global South’, widening the agenda beyond the Middle East to broader questions about the bloc’s direction and its role in global affairs.
The summit also produced a collective statement. WIO News reported that the New Delhi Declaration from the summit urges maximum restraint in West Asia and backs Palestinian statehood, aligning the bloc’s formal position with the tone Xi struck in his speech.
Iran sanctions and China’s energy role
Xi’s call for regional calm comes with China playing an unusually complex economic part in the situation. China is Iran’s biggest trading partner and a key customer of Tehran’s energy exports. That relationship has drawn attention from Washington: the Trump administration imposed a tough new wave of economic sanctions against Iran, with the Treasury Department’s measures, dubbed ‘Operation Economic Outcast’, designed to sever Iran’s financial connections around the world.
Scott Bessent suggested at the launch of the operation that China would not be exempt from those measures. The pressure on Beijing is therefore coming from two directions simultaneously: calls to stabilise the Middle East diplomatically, and US pressure to distance itself economically from one of the region’s main actors.
Meanwhile, the energy dimension adds another layer. While prices soared in the wake of the conflict, economists say China helped prevent them rising even further due to years of stockpiling and its subsequent pullback of oil purchases. That pattern reflects how deeply the country’s economic decisions are intertwined with the region’s stability, even when Beijing presents itself primarily as a diplomatic actor.
BRICS, its membership and the road ahead
BRICS was established in 2009 as a counterweight to Western dominance, originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The bloc has since expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, giving its collective Middle East statements considerably more weight than they carried in the bloc’s early years. Iran’s membership makes the bloc’s calls for restraint particularly delicate, given the country’s role in the region’s conflicts.
Away from New Delhi, President Donald Trump is slated to host Xi at the White House later this month. That meeting will place the two leaders in direct conversation at a moment when their countries are publicly at odds over Iran sanctions, and when Beijing has just used a major multilateral platform to position itself as a peacemaker in the region.
