China's Xi Jinping unexpectedly skipped a speech at a BRICS summit aimed at challenging dollar dominance

• Chinese President Xi Jinping unexpectedly missed a scheduled speech at this week's BRICS summit.
• China's commerce minister stood in for the speech instead, commenting on the US's economic dominance.
• Xi was the only BRICS leader who didn't make an appearance, with even Russia's Putin delivering comments virtually.

President Xi Jinping unexpectedly missed a speech he was slated to give at a BRICS forum in South Africa, with no explanation from Chinese officials regarding his absence.

The summit garnered participation from all other leaders from the bloc — India, Brazil, South Africa, Russia — with Putin, who faces an international arrest warrant, even sharing comments via video. The attendees this week are holding discussions about the potential expansion of the bloc, and how to undercut the dominance of the US and the dollar in global economic affairs. 

After skipping the speech, Xi attended a dinner with the other nations' leaders, per CNN. 

Standing in for Xi, China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao shared the president's prepared remarks, which according to multiple media reports included thinly-veiling digs at the US. The statement said "some country, obsessed with maintaining its hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the emerging markets, and developing countries."

"Whoever develops first becomes their target of containment," Xi's remarks continued. "Whoever is catching up becomes its target of obstruction."

Over the last two years, BRICS nations have increasingly tried to move off the US dollar as part of the broader dedollarization trend, completing international transactions in China's yuan or other local currencies. The bloc has even proposed establishing a shared currency to challenge the dollar's status as the chief global reserve currency. 

On social media, speculation swirled among China experts and commentators about Xi's absence. Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific Programe at the German Marshall Fund, questioned whether something was "amiss" with the Chinese president. 

William Hurst, deputy director of the Centre for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge, wrote that it was "very odd and definitely out of character" for Xi. 

Still, China and Russia have taken the lead at the summit, and have delivered criticisms of the West before an audience of allies and developing nations. Vladimir Putin accused the West of provoking the war in Ukraine and worldwide inflation, for example.  

There is no formal alliance between Beijing and Moscow, but according to the Wall Street Journal, leadership coordinated on anti-Western messaging.