{"id":81945,"date":"2023-08-28T11:00:38","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T01:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=81945"},"modified":"2023-08-28T10:18:08","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T00:18:08","slug":"for-whom-the-brics-toll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/for-whom-the-brics-toll\/","title":{"rendered":"For whom the BRICS toll"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Last week\u2019s BRICS summit\u2014bringing together the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa\u2014was touted as a pivotal event that could change the contours of international relations. Some compared<\/a> it to the Bandung conference of 1955<\/a>, which laid the foundation for the Non-Aligned Movement, while others anticipated progress towards an alternate system of global governance fit for a multipolar world. But what the summit showed is that shared grievances don\u2019t amount to a shared vision.<\/p>\n

The bloc\u2019s decision<\/a> to admit six new members\u2014Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates\u2014may seem to vindicate predictions that BRICS will remake the world order. After all, more than 40 countries<\/a> were allegedly vying for membership, though a formal list was never disclosed.<\/p>\n

But the decision to expand\u2014like the push for de-dollarisation\u2014amounts to picking low-hanging fruit. When it comes to the numerous thorny global challenges requiring urgent attention, the summit provided little in the way of solutions. And that can be expected to continue: ultimately, BRICS has always been more statement than substance, with each member using it as a platform to advance its own ends. A larger, even more heterogeneous membership will impede consensus on all matters of consequence.<\/p>\n

Start with South Africa, the summit\u2019s host. Not only was the country excluded from the G7 summit earlier this year, but it has also faced criticism for its supposedly neutral stance<\/a> on the Ukraine war, and the United States has accused<\/a> it of providing weapons and ammunition to Russia. In a recent speech<\/a>, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa noted that \u2018some of our detractors prefer overt support for their political and ideological choices\u2019 and vowed not to be \u2018drawn into a contest between global powers\u2019.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ramaphosa has taken great pains to emphasise South Africa\u2019s ties with China: the bilateral relationship, he recently noted<\/a>, is \u2018almost as old as our democracy\u2019. But South Africa\u2019s \u2018largest trading partner\u2019 isn\u2019t China, as Ramaphosa claims, but the European Union, and South Africa trades more with the EU<\/a> and the US than it does with the other BRICS members. For South Africa, BRICS is a convenient platform with which to boost its leadership in Africa and globally.<\/p>\n

China has always had similar designs for BRICS: use it as a tool of geopolitical influence, including by advancing an alternative vision of global governance. To this end, this summit holds particular importance. Coming on the heels of the agreement among Japan, South Korea and the US to expand security and economic cooperation<\/a>, the summit offered an opportunity for China to push its vision of BRICS as a full-scale alternative to the G7<\/a>, with Chinese President Xi Jinping firmly in the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

BRICS members are likely to embrace some of China\u2019s pet issues, such as countering<\/a> \u2018unilateral and protectionist measures\u2019 like trade sanctions. And even in areas where they disagree, China might be able to use its economic weight\u2014the country accounts for 70% of the bloc\u2019s GDP<\/a>\u2014to sway them. It was, after all, the principal advocate for expanding the grouping, a move that the others, except Russia, resisted\u2014until they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin, for its part, sees BRICS as a crucial means of countering Russia\u2019s international isolation. Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2014who participated virtually, in order to avoid being arrested<\/a> on an International Criminal Court warrant\u2014used his time in the spotlight to attempt to rally support for his Ukraine war narrative. More broadly, Russia\u2014like China\u2014hopes that BRICS can build alternatives to Western-led initiatives and alliances.<\/p>\n

Not all BRICS members share that vision. India, which is locked in a prolonged border standoff with China, wants to represent the global south on the world stage, not least to bolster economic development. But it also wants to maintain an independent foreign policy. This is the same reason why India bristled at the notion of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue\u2014with Australia, Japan and the US\u2014mimicking a military alliance<\/a>. India\u2019s fellow flawed democracy, Brazil, also seems to prefer genuine non-alignment and has ambitions to act as a diplomatic balancer.<\/p>\n

Divergent visions and interests have impaired BRICS from the start. As Jim O\u2019Neill\u2014who coined the term (then BRICs) in 2001\u2014wrote<\/a> in 2021, beyond \u2018creating the BRICS Bank, now known as the New Development Bank\u2019 and meeting annually, \u2018it is difficult to see what the group has done\u2019. Not much has changed in the two years since, and a slew of new members will hardly contribute to the group\u2019s coherence, let alone its effectiveness.<\/p>\n

The latest summit might have featured important discussions on topics like the introduction of a common BRICS currency<\/a> and the Black Sea grain deal<\/a>, which Russia recently scuttled. But, as is customary with BRICS summits, the concluding communiqu\u00e9<\/a> offers plenty of aspirational rhetoric\u2014including commitments to \u2018inclusive multilateralism\u2019 and \u2018mutually accelerated growth\u2019\u2014but not much else. Criticising the global order is much easier than building a new one.<\/p>\n

But even if this BRICS summit doesn\u2019t sound the death knell of the current order, it does highlight just how widely shared grievances against it have become and how keen many countries are to challenge the status quo.<\/em> The West must heed the warning signs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s BRICS summit\u2014bringing together the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa\u2014was touted as a pivotal event that could change the contours of international relations. Some compared it to the Bandung conference …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1658,"featured_media":81947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1355,52,772,181,2146],"class_list":["post-81945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-brics","tag-china","tag-geopolitics","tag-international-order","tag-south-africa"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFor whom the BRICS toll | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/for-whom-the-brics-toll\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"For whom the BRICS toll | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week\u2019s BRICS summit\u2014bringing together the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa\u2014was touted as a pivotal event that could change the contours of international relations. Some compared it to the Bandung conference ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/for-whom-the-brics-toll\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-08-28T01:00:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-08-28T00:18:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1635768067.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ana Palacio\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ana Palacio\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/for-whom-the-brics-toll\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1635768067.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1635768067.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":683,\"caption\":\"JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - AUGUST 24: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with fellow BRICS leaders President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of China Xi Jinping, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pose for a family photo, with delegates including six nations invited to join the BRICS group, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, during the closing day of The BRICS summit at the Sandton Convention Center on August 24, 2023 in the Sandton district of Johannesburg, South Africa. 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