The expansion of Brics to include six new members is a victory for China, a setback for the United States and a warning to the European Union. And it reflects a rising confidence among countries in the Global South in their demands for an overhaul of the international order established after the second World War.
From the beginning of next year, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will join the group that is currently made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Almost 20 other countries have applied for membership and a similar number have expressed an interest in joining.
The current Brics member countries account for 40 per cent of the world’s population and a quarter of its economic output. The new members include three of the world’s biggest energy producers as well as Africa’s second and third most populous countries.
[ Brics leaders unite in stand over dominance of trade and finance by WestOpens in new window ]
“Brics stands for solidarity and for progress. Brics stands for inclusivity and a more just, equitable order. Brics stands for sustainable development,” South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa said at the end of this week’s summit in Johannesburg.
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As an informal institution bound by no treaty, with no secretariat and made up of an ideologically diverse membership, Brics has defied definition since its first meeting in 2009. If China and Russia have seen the group as a counterweight to the West, India, South Africa and Brazil think of Brics as “non-western” rather than “anti-western”.
With the exception of Iran, the new member states also have at least one foot in the West and Saudi Arabia and the UAE host US military forces within their borders. And most Brics activities, which are dominated by trade and investment, do not put its members in conflict with the US and its allies.
The principle of solidarity does not require Brics members to support one another diplomatically but it has been useful to China and Russia in recent years. Brics members declined to back a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year and when China faces international criticism over human rights, its Brics partners usually stay silent.
[ Vladimir Putin defends Ukraine war during address to Brics summit in JohannesburgOpens in new window ]
The financial sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and the EU have accelerated moves within Brics to create alternative or parallel payments systems that do not leave them exposed to such action. The leaders have instructed their finance ministers and central bank governors to identify measures to reduce their reliance on the US dollar in trade.
The EU’s support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion is morally justified and in its own strategic interest but European efforts to enlist support in the Global South for sanctions against Russia have often been hectoring and moralising. They have also been ineffective.
‘Yesterday’s world’
Brazil, India, China and South Africa engaged with Russia in 166 Brics events in 2022, almost all of them after the invasion of Ukraine. Brics expansion is likely to make western sanctions against Russia and Iran less effective as it offers more opportunities for bilateral trade, increasingly in local currencies rather than the dollar.
One of the central Brics demands is for an overhaul of the international institutional architecture, a call taken up by UN secretary general António Guterres in Johannesburg this week.
“Today’s global governance structures reflect yesterday’s world. They were largely created in the aftermath of the second World War when many African countries were still ruled by colonial powers and were not even at the table. This is particularly true of the Security Council of the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions,” he said.
If the EU wants to improve its relationships with the Global South, it could start with giving up Europe’s automatic right to appoint the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and by backing fairer representation throughout the international institutions.