(TibetanReview.net, Aug03’26) – China is reported to have called for curtains on media access to groups such as the Falun Gong and Tibetans during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s possible visit to India for the BRICS summit in September. It is not clear whether this is just a request or a condition for Xi’s possible attendance.
Senior embassy officials raised concerns about media access for news organisations linked to these groups and the potential for them to question the Chinese delegation attending the leaders’ summit scheduled for Sep 12 and 13 in New Delhi, reported theprint.in Aug 3.
The embassy request followed the launch last week of the media accreditation process for the summit by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. As chair of the BRICS summit, media accreditation and access to media spaces at the summit venue is under control of the Indian government, the report noted.
Falun Gong, a spiritual organisation which alarmed the Communist Party with its organizational strength and discipline, has remained banned in China since 1999. It is linked to media outlets such as The Epoch Times and the New Tang Dynasty Television, both based in the USA.
Tibetans report for media outlets such as Radio Free Asia, Voice of Tibet, Voice of America, and others.
The request to curtail access to these organisations comes as President Xi is likely to make his first visit to India in seven years following his last trip to Mamallapuram for an informal summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the report noted.
Months after that, ties between the two countries plunged to an all-time low, following the Galwan Valley border clashes in Ladakh during the summer of 2020.
It was only in Oct 2024 that India and China agreed to disengage at the friction points across the Line of Actual Control (LAC), leading to a Modi-Xi meeting in the Russian city of Kazan a few days after the disengagement agreement on the margins of the BRICS leaders’ summit.
Last year, Modi travelled to the Chinese city of Tianjin to attend the heads of states’ meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), during which he met with Xi on the summit’s margins.
The two sides have been taking steps toward normalising their ties even as the border dispute continues to remain intractable. They have worked to introduce confidence building measures to stabilise the political relationship. India resumed issuing visas to Chinese citizens last year, while Beijing restarted the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra (pilgrimage) in 2025. Numerous other steps have also been taken by both the sides, with many more remaining to be taken. However, to India, restoring trust on the border situation remains the basis for full normalization of bilateral ties, although to China this need not be the case.
The BRICS summit is set to be India’s biggest international summit since the G20 summit held in Sep 2023. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim are stated to be among those expected to attend it. Malaysia is a BRICS partner country.
The BRICS bloc is an intergovernmental coalition of eleven major emerging markets and developing nations made up of the founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, along with newer members Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).