1st row L-R) South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, China's President Xi Jinping, Russia's President Vladimir Putin, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and leaders of the invited states (2nd row L-R) Uzbek's President Islam Karimov, Tajikistan's President Imomali Rakhmon, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Mongolia's President Tsakhia Elbegdorj, Kazakh's President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko, Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani and Armenia's President Serzh Sargsyan pose during a family photo session at the BRICS Summit in Ufa, Russia, July 9, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

The BRICS summit in the Russian city of Ufa last week yielded many agreements and action plans, from development issues to making efforts to maintain peace. Many say the summit again reflects Russia's urgency to deliver memorable results when it hosts world leaders.

Apart from making their political stances on pressing global issues known, the five BRICS members - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - agreed on a common strategy for economic partnership and ways to deepen their cooperation, with their concurrence on putting the BRICS New Development Bank in operation soon being the icing on the cake.

The BRICS members also held talks with Shanghai Cooperation Organization members - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO summit, held simultaneously in Ufa, also announced a long list of agreements and action plans to build railways, roads and implement other infrastructure projects. Other important outcomes of the SCO summit were the approval of the memberships of India and Pakistan, and BRICS and SCO members' agreement to collectively implement China's Belt and Road Initiative and Russia's Eurasian Economic Union initiative.

The emerging and developing countries have shown their respect for history, too, by commemorating or agreeing to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, China's victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45) and the birth of United Nations. Announcing that leaders of all the other SCO members have agreed to attend the events organized by China to commemorate the three historical events, Chinese officials said President Xi Jinping had already sent an invitation to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to join them.

Not surprisingly, the Ufa summits have been compared with the G7 meeting in Bavaria, Germany, one month ago. And a comparative reading of the documents issued at the two places shows the difference in the developed and developing countries' approach to meeting challenges.

Although both groups have vowed to deal with economic challenges and development issues, as well as fight climate change, the developed economies seem inward looking and eager to pat their own backs. For example, they still talk about the $100-billion climate fund to help developing economies to adapt to and fight climate change, even though they have contributed next to nothing to the fund in five years.

More worryingly, the G7 countries haven't spared a single word on the 70th anniversary of the formation of the UN. This is shocking especially because three of its members - the US, the UK and France - are permanent members of the Security Council. The G7 has not even mentioned that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, even though Europeans suffered the most in the war. Did it have something to do with Japan being a member of the exclusive G7 club?

The developed world has been asking emerging economies like China and India to shoulder more international responsibilities. The Ufa summits show they are determined to not only contribute to global growth but also protect the postwar world order by paying their respects to history. In contrast, the developed economies have not announced any mega cooperative plans to help global growth. Instead, they intend to impose restrictive measures on and use protectionism against the developing economies.

No Western leader attended Russia's celebrations on May 9 to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, although German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Moscow the next day. This has prompted some observers to say that Abe could follow in Merkel's footsteps to visit Beijing on Sept 4, a day after China celebrates the 70th anniversary of the victory against fascism.

This world needs able leadership, especially from the developed countries. But to provide that leadership, the developed world has to respect history. In the latter half of the year, the advanced countries will get more opportunities to fulfill their responsibilities when they come face to face with developing economies at the UN, and the G20 and APEC summits. But will they change their tack?

The author is China Daily chief correspondent in Brussels. fujing@chinadaily.com.cn