At a BRICS summit hosted in New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a pointed warning against the "weaponisation" of critical minerals, cautioning that such practices could "hinder shared progress" among member nations. Though he named no country directly, the remark was widely understood in diplomatic circles as a rebuke of China, which controls the overwhelming majority of global processing capacity for rare earths and other minerals essential to modern technology.

Modi's comments echoed language embedded in the New Delhi Declaration, the summit's formal communique, which flagged vulnerabilities in critical mineral supply chains as a shared concern among BRICS members. The juxtaposition was striking: a bloc built on the premise of presenting a unified front against Western economic dominance was, in one of its own founding capitals, airing anxieties about the dominance of its most powerful member.

A Bloc Built on Uneasy Foundations

BRICS, an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has since its first summit in 2008 sought to position itself as a counterweight to Western-led economic institutions. The original vision, as many analysts observed at the time, imagined a division of global economic labor: China would anchor manufacturing, India would specialize in services, while Russia and Brazil would supply raw materials to the world. The theory held that by pooling their growing economic weight, these disparate nations could challenge the entrenched interests of the West.

That vision has always been more aspirational than structural. The four original BRIC countries, as historians have noted, share strikingly little in common beyond a desire to dilute Western influence: different political systems, different economic models, and, increasingly, competing rather than complementary interests. The 2008 financial crisis exposed how illusory the idea of "decoupling" from global economic shocks truly was. China, India, Russia and Brazil all suffered contagion effects despite hopes that emerging economies could insulate themselves from a Western-triggered meltdown.

Critical minerals now expose a similar fault line, but one rooted not in external shocks but in internal imbalance. China's grip on the refining and processing of minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements, materials indispensable to electric vehicles, semiconductors, and defense technology, gives Beijing leverage not just over Western economies but over its own BRICS partners.

India's Strategic Anxiety

For India, the concern is far from theoretical. New Delhi has watched China deploy export controls and licensing restrictions on critical minerals as tools of statecraft, most notably during periods of heightened diplomatic tension. Given that India's own manufacturing ambitions, from electronics to clean energy, depend heavily on imported processed minerals, any disruption to that supply chain carries direct economic consequences.

Modi's warning that weaponising critical minerals could "hinder shared progress" was less an abstract appeal to multilateral harmony than a direct signal that India views its BRICS partnership with China as compatible with rivalry rather than trust.

This tension fits a broader pattern in the India-China relationship, one of economic entanglement paired with strategic wariness. The two countries are the most populous nations on earth and among the largest emerging economies, yet they have clashed over border disputes, regional influence, and now, increasingly, control over the raw materials that will define the next phase of industrial development.

The Limits of BRICS Solidarity

The inclusion of supply chain vulnerabilities in the New Delhi Declaration suggests that India was not alone in voicing unease. Other BRICS members, several of which export raw minerals but lack the processing infrastructure China has spent decades building, may share similar concerns about dependency on a single dominant supplier within their own coalition.

This dynamic revives a question that has dogged BRICS since its founding: whether the bloc represents genuine economic cooperation or a temporary alignment of convenience. As some historians have argued, once China's economy scales large enough, it may have little need for its BRICS partners at all, potentially finding more strategic value in direct engagement with the United States or the European Union than in maintaining parity with Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa.

Modi's remarks, then, can be read as both a warning and a hedge. It is a warning to Beijing that India will not passively accept dependency on Chinese-controlled supply chains, and a hedge against a future in which BRICS unity proves as fragile as the shared interests underpinning it. For a bloc that has long struggled to translate economic aspiration into political cohesion, the critical minerals dispute may prove to be one of its most consequential internal tests yet.

Whether the New Delhi Declaration's language on supply chain security translates into concrete diversification efforts, such as joint mineral processing ventures among non-Chinese BRICS members, or remains largely rhetorical will likely determine how seriously the bloc's stated commitment to "shared progress" is ultimately taken.