At the next meeting of the BRICS member countries, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi voiced the idea of expanding the association
The fact that the statement was made against the backdrop of a new round of NATO expansion, where hitherto neutral Sweden and Finland have asked for, does not contain direct parallels. BRICS does not have a military component, unlike NATO. At the same time, economic sustainability plays as much, if not more, a role in today’s regional conflicts than the size and quality of equipment of armies. And in this sense, China’s statement really sounded like a challenge.
The need for the accelerated development of the BRICS, albeit for different reasons, is experienced by all member countries of the association. Russia, under pressure from Western sanctions, is looking for points of support in the form of alliances of developing countries.
China is threatened by a slowdown in economic growth and potentially the same Western sanctions, whether they are the reason for the aggravation around Taiwan, a new trade war with the United States, or any other. Brazil is in need of building a new payment and logistics infrastructure (as, indeed, all other member countries) in order to purchase the fertilizers, equipment and technologies it needs from Russia, China, India and other countries of the non-Western bloc. South Africa is in dire need of the same, but with an emphasis on food.
In his speech on the occasion of the BRICS summit, Chinese leader Xi Jinping made it clear that the organization’s ambitions go beyond issues of economic cooperation, seeing its tasks as “contributing to the stability of international relations in an era of turbulence, countering hegemonism, power politics and bloc confrontation.” All these points are an undisguised attack on the United States and the collective West. Beijing is clearly interested in transforming BRICS from a club of interests of the largest developing countries into an organization that will become an assembly point for an alternative global project to the Western one.
Over the years, the media wrote about the possibility of Egypt, Thailand, Mexico, Guinea, Tajikistan, and Venezuela joining the BRICS. Argentina is interested in closer coordination with the BRICS, whose Foreign Minister was also present at the last meeting. Until now, India has resisted the expansion of the BRICS membership, fearing (not without reason) the strengthening of China’s position. If, against the background of the global transformation of the world order, Beijing and Delhi manage to find a compromise on this issue, it is likely that the expansion of the BRICS will take on an avalanche.
One of the points of attraction for new member countries may be the resources of the New Development Bank, which finances projects in the field of energy and food security, the development of payment systems and transport infrastructure. So far, the NDB has positioned itself as an additional link in the work of international and regional financial institutions, financing individual projects, including providing loans to the Eurasian Development Bank, established by Russia and Kazakhstan. Given the new geopolitical realities and the impending global recession, the resources of the BRICS “mutual aid fund” may increase manifold, and the NDB itself will take a course towards sovereignization, becoming a kind of alternative to the World Bank for developing countries that are in the orbit of influence of the BRICS founder countries.
However, the BRICS should become something more than just another source of crisis financing. The merger may act as an additional driver of the trend to switch to trading in national currencies. If now this is done mainly on a bilateral basis, then the promotion of this topic within the framework of BRICS or BRICS+ can have a powerful synergistic effect. The launch of the long-announced BRICS Pay payment system would be a great start.
The expansion of BRICS can go not only along the path of accepting new members, but also along the path of the so-called integration of integrations, building close ties and becoming an “umbrella” for associations such as the SCO, the EAEU, the African Union, SELAC and others. This is all the more relevant since each of the BRICS member countries claims leadership in major regional trade and economic associations: China (Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership and SCO), Russia (EAEU), Brazil (MERCOSUR), South Africa (South African Customs Union).
There are many obstacles in the way of BRICS exaltation. Starting from the fact that the strengthening of the union will be resisted by the West, and ending with internal contradictions within the BRICS: between China and India, Russia and China, potentially Brazil and Argentina, etc. In this sense, the growth of BRICS ambitions should be supported by a reduction in the ambitions of the countries members (primarily China) to establish their dominance in the union of states for the sake of common goals. Whether BRICS will be able to cope with external pressure and internal contradictions will largely determine whether this organization will become the foundation of a new multipolar world as opposed to the hegemony of the collective West.
Gleb Prostakov, VIEW