"BRICS Summit: Russia and China Forge Anti-Western Alliance"

The BRICS summit held in South Africa highlighted the diverging goals and challenges faced by Russia and China in their bid to turn the economic grouping into an anti-Western bloc. While Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the expansion of BRICS and criticized the "Cold War mentality" of the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who could not attend the summit due to war crimes charges, accused the West of illegal actions and neocolonialism. However, resistance from India and Brazil, which have stronger ties with the US and Europe, poses a challenge to Putin and Xi's ambitions. The proposed expansion of BRICS also risks exposing divisions among its members.