By Bhaso Ndzendze*
One key outcome of the 15th Brics summit, hosted by South Africa, is the decision to invite six more countries to join the group with effect from January 2024. They are Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. All six had applied for membership. The enlargement will grow the association’s membership to 11, and increase its envisaged role as a geopolitical alternative to global institutions dominated by the west.
The five current member countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have argued that their size, in economic and population terms, was not represented in the world’s institutions, particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The Brics five represent about 42% of the world’s population and more than 23% of world GDP.
The enlarged grouping will account for 46.5% of the world population. Using the IMF’s 2022 GDP data, we can deduce that it will account for about 30% of global GDP.
The disparate nature of the six new members is bound to spark debate about the real nature of Brics.
In his welcoming remarks at the summit (22-24 August), the host, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, stated:
Brics stands for solidarity and for progress. Brics stands for inclusivity and a more just, equitable order. Brics stands for sustainable development.
The group has been remarkably consistent on these values and aspirations.
Understanding the nature of Brics
One of the first questions about Brics is often “what is it?”. This is telling. This question does not come up, for example, about the European Union or even the G20.
Brics is not an organisation (it has no headquarters, secretariat or treaty). But it does have a formal institution that is jointly owned – the New Development Bank. Confusion about Brics’ precise nature is understandable.
At various points it has referred to itself as a forum, a platform, a mechanism, a partnership, or a strategic partnership, to name a few. Others have called it an alliance or a bloc. It is neither.
In international relations, both terms are strictly defined. The term “alliance” refers to a mutual defence pact and implies military cooperation. A “bloc” refers to ideological consistency (political bloc) or a free trade agreement (trade bloc). Brics has none of these characteristics.
The members also disagree on some key issues. China and Russia are noncommittal (at best) on the aspirations of India, Brazil and South Africa to become members of the UN Security Council. Their declarations have over the years reiterated the same phrase:
China and Russia understand and support the aspirations of India, Brazil and South Africa to play a greater role in the United Nations.
This shows there is some serious disagreement within the group.
As a political scientist interested in global politics, I have written about Brics and its potential for changing the status quo. With hindsight, I can assert that certain principles have informed it since its establishment and first summit in 2009. In my view, at a material level, the 15 years of summit declarations point to four fundamental values:
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mutual development
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multilateralism
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global governance reform
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solidarity.
The association self-reportedly seeks secure sustainable development for itself and the global south, to safeguard and advance multilateralism, to institute reform for the goal of representative institutions, and to achieve solidarity among members.
Economic development
Economics comes first in the group; at its root, it is a collective of emerging economies eager to sustain and improve their economic trajectory. Their insistence on reform is, after all, based on their perceived disproportionate under-representation in global financial institutions.
The group’s first, and so far only, notable establishment is the New Development Bank, primarily to finance infrastructure development. There’s also a contingent reserve that members can draw from in emergencies. It is valued at US$100 billion.
Multilateralism
The second value refers to the group’s concern about the use of entities outside the UN to pursue global objectives. Most notable is the use of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) to invade Afghanistan in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks in the US, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the US and the UK, circumventing the UN Security Council.
Russian president Vladimir Putin expressed this concern in his speech to the 2007 Munich Conference on Security:
The use of force can only be considered legitimate if the decision is sanctioned by the UN. And we do not need to substitute NATO or the EU for the UN.
Global governance reform
Thirdly, the Brics countries have long pushed for leaders of global institutions to be elected in a transparent and democratic way. For example, the president of the World Bank has always been an American, and the managing director of the IMF a European. The World Bank has 189 member states and the IMF 190.
The idea of the New Development Bank was not to substitute the World Bank but to “supplement” existing international financial institutions. Brics still envisions a World Bank in which its members have voting rights proportional to their economic weight, and with staff drawn from across the world in a geographically balanced way.
Solidarity
Finally, the members have articulated solidarity with one another in a number of declarations, beginning in 2010. It comes down to mutual assistance in times of humanitarian disasters, respecting one another’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In light of criticism and sanctions plans against China, for its alleged suppression of the Uyghur-Muslim population, and Russia, for invading Ukraine, solidarity has come to mean silence or nonalignment.
A blank slate
Brics is a nebulous entity. This has proved beneficial for member countries hosting Brics summits. They get to set the agenda and use it for their ends – without upsetting the consensus. One common pattern has been the use of summits to set overarching themes that are favourable to the host country’s domestic policy and regional leadership or foreign policy stance.
Thus, for example, all Brics summits hosted by South Africa foregrounded Africa in their names: “Brics and Africa: Partnership for mutually accelerated growth, sustainable development and inclusive multilateralism” in 2023. Brazil and Russia have inserted issues that are important to their region, and often invited leaders of neighbouring countries to retreats.
This shows how much clout they enjoy, as they get to funnel access to a now-renowned association that is simultaneously well established but also evades easy definition. With the addition of the six new members, such evasiveness is set to only continue.
*Bhaso Ndzendze, Associate Professor (International Relations), University of Johannesburg. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
61 Comments
These are some of the recent updates regarding the BRICS trading/currency system.
"I have advocated the idea of great financial integration where we could have a new reference unit which would not replace our national currency." - Lula Da Silva
"No nation will give up their own FX anymore. When the euro goes away you’ll know why. They are creating a unit for differences in trade using gold internationally. It’s mercantilism."
A platform of platforms is being created.
“China & UAE-backed mBridge plan is considered so advanced that the IMF hosted discussions in April about how to bring the project under [its] control…to avoid having it morph from technical solution to geopolitical tool” - Bloomberg "Geopolitical tool" = circumvent USD "pipes"
"The Summit agreed to task the BRICS Finance Ministers and/or Central Bank Governors, as appropriate, to consider the issue of local currencies, payment instruments and platforms and report back to the BRICS leaders by the next Summit." - Cyril Ramaphosa
"The currency concept is being worked on more now, and we are very confident they can implement it immediately in limited fashion among 3 countries (Russia, China, Saudi Arabia) if they choose to. That implementation at the basic level is: monetary value for traded goods will be offset with each other. Your wheat for my oil. Then, the pricing unit will be in a local currency (all relatively soft pegged to the yuan, which will be soft pegged to gold) and the balance will be settled in gold, a gold NFT on their platform in some form.
What we describe above is also (we believe) already happening since 2017. There certainly could be more than that, but this is what we can say has been worked out thus far. This is the minimum. Anything more than this must be tested right now. Specifics, while important, are not known. But it is happening in more than abstraction."
I highly recommend this Twitter account for BRICS information @Sorenthek
Check your history Xing. Or have you only read your bosses rewritten version. Since 1953, Israel has been invaded twice by Arabs, and has dealt to them appropriately each time. The Anglos were responsible for pushing the Iraqis out of Kuwait, and then dealt to them. Note how Arabs started each war. The Falklands was invaded by Argentina, and pushed out by the Anglos. So far each problem was caused by Brics wannabees. And China and India in the same bloc is a laugh. Maybe you should give some examples of Anglos and Jews starting a conflict in the last 70 years.
I'm glad you said "Most" wars, still when they said they have also asked Argentina (the Falkland's war) to join, that was the end of it for me, just started laughing, they are totally bankrupt. You try and unite countries of strength not weakness, it all reeks of desperation to me. The more countries the less likely it will work. Should have just stayed with Russia, China, India and got that working and the rest would come knocking begging to join.
Russian president Vladimir Putin expressed this concern in his speech to the 2007 Munich Conference on Security:
The use of force can only be considered legitimate if the decision is sanctioned by the UN. And we do not need to substitute NATO or the EU for the UN.
Anyone care to remind him of this???
Except that the UN's authority is undermined by the vetos. So the UN is not in itself a functional democracy as any majority vote can be cancelled by any one of the big bullies.
And to Colin; they are not 'Socialists', they are single party authoritarian states, irrespective of how they choose to present themselves.
See also Like-Minded Developing Countries - Wikipedia who work to block climate progress. They recently had the climate wording changed to take out any reference to science.
The main purpose of BRICS is to form a group against the west's hegemony, more specifically the USA, and even more specifically an attempt to find an alternative to the USD being the world reserve currency. This would help the BRICS countries to avoid US and western sanctions.
But the fact that the BRICS main purpose is to go "against" something rather than stand "for" something is a large problem in itself. Indeed, the BRICS countries are led by various despots who cannot be trusted, and I have little doubt that these countries will cannibalise each other without a second thought if there is a benefit to be obtained.
Because of the lack of integrity and trust between these countries, I don't belive that BRICS will ultimately be successful
But you're just a suburban Western-ite Dr Y. What would you know besides what is bandied around the water cooler?
Water coolers are not the place where issues are discussed such as how the privileged existence under the Anglo umbrella has not been created and how that privilege can exist without the BRICS nations. There are other things not obvious to you in the comforts of Springfield such as what will become of the petro-dollar.
Interesting sentiment. All of this ties back to human behaviour, as everyone wishes to belong somewhere to some group. Mass scale high school. If the BRICS countries could build enough trust to implement and sustain from large scale deceit or the like for their own benefit then they would be likely successful. I cant see it happening on the basis that the people of said countries already have widespread issued with trust in those they elect anyway.
I cant see it happening on the basis that the people of said countries already have widespread issued with trust in those they elect anyway.
And how is that different from the glorious Anglosphere? Are you saying because we can get rid of Cindy and her ilk, everything changes for the better?
Of course they are! And I wouldn't argue that eg $US dominance is somehow morally righteous, either. I'm just observing that this is a bunch of countries who are otherwise at each other's throats, except when the topic of how much they hate US dominance comes up. They have no reason to trust each other and I sincerely doubt their ability to build anything substantial because of that. The Anglo pacts are built on shared history and ideals - frequently hypocritical, perhaps delusional ideals, but something a little bit more than naked self-interest. Look at ASEAN - a group of nations with far more in common than this lot. Yet they can't organise much beyond table tennis tournaments.
OK. That's a fair comment. Mind you, you talk about the Anglo brotherhood. Every 2nd NZer seems to have an undisguisable distaste of the U.S. The irony is that those same people are ambivalent about the U.S. bombing Arabs and preserving monetary hegemony through the threat of violence.
Wrong. Fifty years ago, the only imports NZ had from any of these Brics countries was Ladas from Russia, with NZDB, the predecessor to Fonterra, being the NZ agent. If any of them stopped exporting to us we would just pick it up elsewhere.
I see. So we're going to import goods and foreign students from the U.S. Gotcha. Your egg slice will cost $20 instead of $5.
They're a bunch of no hopers.
- Brazil has experienced a lost decade of growth and there is no sign of will recover yet. It is also experiencing increasing inflation again.
- Russia has spent the last eighteen months embroiled in a three day war and it's currency is being rapidly devalued. We don't know the true state of its economy because the published data is fabricated.
- India faces manifold growth problems including increasing trade tariffs and abysmal labor participation rates.
- China is still probably the best of a bad bunch, while it faces issues with it's growth model until recently they where at least experiencing consistent growth.
- South Africa has experienced a lost decade of growth, unemployment is at eye watering levels and the government have been in an energy crisis for two decades. Arguably the country is economically regressing.
Generally impoverished countries remain impoverished. You need a confluence of factors to develop an economy rapidly.
I wouldn't say that. Just the top three of them should have got it all started, not trying to drag the rest of the no hopers with them. I think however it will not work as there is to much corruption in all three of them and none of them will want to relinquish any control of their currency. You have to remember the people at the top are Billionaires, why would they really want to rock the boat, its a case of I'm all right Jack. The only thing they have in common really is to see the USA fall and they are doing a pretty good job of that all by themselves anyway. If they can get BRICS to work, that will certainly speed up the demise of the USA.
I keep wondering how long before Russia disintegrates, it's showing all the hallmarks of a failed state, possibly even hyperinflation.
Crackdowns on dissent, jailing and assassinating opponents, a worthless currency, skyrocketing interest rates, wages surging, a costly war, a dictatorship, a crumbling economy, censorship and a declining population. Pretty much like Nazi Germany.
The Russians in the East are nothing like those in the West, they might see this as an opportunity to throw off the shackles.
Personally I think the USA will disintegrate before Russia. I wouldn't believe all the western propaganda if I were you. The Russians still have plenty of money, are rich in resources in oil and gas and still have enough left over to launch a rocket to the moon only last week.
The Russians launched a rocket last week? Right now it's in a million pieces on the moon, it was a propaganda exercise. Meantime Putin's getting on with his usual activities of assassinating the opposition.
It's absolutely amazing how many opponents have ended up 6 ft under.
The West is a hard act to follow.
What we intuitively consider as the West now has at its core a Protestant culture comprised mostly, although not entirely, of British, Germanic and Scandinavian folk. France has had an influence too. These people made up the majority of influential colonists of the United States. Iberian influence was mostly confined to Central and South America.
The tumultuous events of the twentieth century, where the West essentially struggled with itself to determine the future of humanity, was a struggle between its persona and shadow for world domination. The triumph of the persona over the shadow led to a society grounded in realism, eschewing fantasy, although now susceptible to nihilism and individual self-destruction, perhaps from the repressed shadow. Consciousness expanded and the drive to deeply think about things and develop justice and individual human rights progressed. The urge for world domination remains but in a much more humane and thoughtful way.
The BRICS group believe that the West is set on hegemony and they are not wrong. They are gambling that the West has a vulnerability, it has lost its collective soul, its collective fantasies and discern this as degenerate and weak. Fantasies are dangerous, not real, a type of opiate for the masses, easily manipulated by unscrupulous or misguided leaders. Yet most thinking, educated people, of all nations, desire the freedom to think and believe whatever they like. With the ready availability of information they are no longer as easily fooled. The West has a monopoly on soft power. All of which makes the West a very hard force to overcome in any meaningfully different way.
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