Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday called for accelerating the expansion of the Brics grouping besides efforts to jointly fend off risks by increasing the political and security cooperation among the countries of the five-nation bloc. Xi, who skipped his attendance at the Brics Business Forum on Tuesday sparking speculation about his absence, attended the Summit here on Wednesday where he pitched for more political and security cooperation among the member countries. He was the only leader absent from the Brics Business Forum on Tuesday, with Chinese commerce minister Wang Wentao reading a speech in his place that had a hardline message apparently aimed at the US. Asked why Xi had not attended the forum, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin sidestepped the question, telling reporters in Beijing on Wednesday that Xi’s speech had been delivered. While his speech at the Business Forum hit out at the US saying that “some country, obsessed with maintaining its hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the emerging and developing countries”, he said in his speech at the summit that “the Cold War mentality is still haunting our world, and the geopolitical situation is getting tense.” He said development should not be a privilege reserved for a few but a right for all countries, and he supported the inclusion of more nations in Brics. “I am glad to see the growing enthusiasm of developing countries about participating in BRICS cooperation. And quite a number of them have applied to join … we need to accelerate the Brics expansion process to bring more countries into the Brics family,” Xi said,
