Chinese President Xi's state visit to S. Africa

STORY: Xi is in South Africa to attend the BRICS leaders summit in Johannesburg.

Leaders of the BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - are meeting for a summit where they will weigh expanding the bloc as some members push to forge it into a counterweight to the West.

Heightened global tensions provoked by the Ukraine war and a growing rivalry between China and the United States have added urgency to a drive to strengthen the bloc, which has at times suffered from internal divisions and a lack of coherent vision.