After the invitation of the BRICS group of nations to six countries to become members of their bloc, and 2023’s G20 summit taking place in India, it’s time to reflect. Is polarization growing between the BRICS and the Western world powers club? What is the biggest motivating factor among the BRICS: economics, geostrategy or ideology? What would more BRICS member nations mean?
This last question was posed by economist Jim O’Neill, former president of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, several weeks ago following the 15th BRICS annual summit, which took place in Johannesburg (South Africa) at the end of August.
It’s worth mentioning it here because Jim O’Neill was the one who coined the acronym BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in 2001. 22 years later, the economist reflects: “Now that the BRICS will accept new members, one wonders if the grouping can pose a genuine challenge to the prevailing global-governance institutions.”
Analyses before and after the South African BRICS summit, to whose acronym an “+” has been added making them the BRICS+ countries, are conflicting. However, there is indisputable data.
For example, the greater international sway of the block of these still-called emerging countries, due to their expansion. Those invited to join as full members of the group, starting January 1, 2024, are Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. As South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared, it “shows that the BRICS family gains in importance, stature and influence in the world.”
Greater weight in the world economy
Various analysts have highlighted the inclusion of Saudi Arabia and Iran, two of the largest oil producers in the world after the United States, particularly Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that after the expansion, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the BRICS+ countries will go from the current 25% to 37% of the world’s GDP. From a demographic point of view, the member countries will account for almost half of the planet’s population (47%).
The G7’s member countries represent around 10% of the world population, much lower than the BRICS’, and their weight in the world economy is decreasing.
The Group of Seven (or G7,) the group of nations the BRICS keep a constant eye on, is made up of seven democratic industrialized countries – Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom – plus the European Union as a permanent guest, an eighth member since 1981. Together they represent around 10% of the world population, much lower than the BRICS, but they account for 45% of the world’s gross income.
According to international organizations, the weight of the G7 countries in the world economy is decreasing, after previously having hit 75% of the world’s gross income. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated that in 2023 the BRICS countries will collectively have a GDP of $56 trillion, while the G7 nations are projected to have a GDP of $52 trillion.
Brazil’s objectives and China’s warning
As is often the case, the leaders’ most significant words were spoken on the sidelines of the summit. The president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, noted that “the G7 is a closed club (…). We don’t want to be that. We want BRICS to be a multilateral institution, not an exclusive club,” adding: “This bloc [the BRICS+] does not intend to challenge other international coalitions, such as the G7, or the United States, but rather to organize the so-called Global South. We just want organization.”
In his official speech in Johannesburg, Chinese leader Xi Jinping mentioned, according to CGTN (an English-language channel of the country’s national television broadcaster) that: “A Chinese adage reads, ‘Victory is ensured when people pool their strength; success is secured when people put their heads together.’ Let us remain committed and united in building a community of shared development.”
Later, at a business forum that he could not attend, a statement from Xi Jinping was read, in which he called on the world to “avoid sleepwalking into the abyss of a new Cold War,” and condemned “some country obsessed with maintaining its hegemony has gone out of its way to cripple the emerging markets and developing countries.”
According to most analysts, China has gotten what it wanted: expansion. As Spanish newspaper Expansión put it, the BRICS have “gained power over the United States and EU.” Arab media, such as Al Mayadeen, also emphasize: “The Johannesburg Declaration put an end to all rumors about Brazil and India’s reservations regarding the expansion of the BRICS.”
Western media’s counterattack
In recent weeks, various Western news outlets, especially British ones, have strongly criticized the BRICS, even before the most recent summit. The first reproval came from the Financial Times’ business section, with a headline that read: “How the Brics nations risk becoming satellites of China,” while also pointing to a “serious imbalance.”
The British newspaper explained that during the commodities boom in the 2000s, low-cost Chinese manufacturing benefited from Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. Although other countries also enjoyed years of relative economic prosperity at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries (Russia, Brazil, South Africa and India), “only China managed to move in any significant way towards rich-world status by adopting technological advances to become a knowledge-based economy.”
“The others remained stuck in low-growth models overly dependent on commodities, their policy apparatus hampered by various combinations of political dysfunction and corruption,” the article continues.
“The real geopolitical conflict of the 21st century may not be between China and the West, but between China and India” (Matthew Lynn)
Furthermore, the FT described the idea of a new BRICS currency, proposed by Lula da Silva, as “a fantasy.” Finally, the British newspaper assured: “Nor is China’s support for other Brics members exactly unconditional. Even leaving its longstanding military rivalry with India aside, while China has given Putin diplomatic cover after the invasion of Ukraine, Beijing is in effect charging for it by buying Russian oil below world market price.”
According to the Financial Times, “the BRICS are not a market steering committee capable of governing the world,” and “their weaknesses as a policy-making forum are evident.”
Another of the biggest criticisms of the future of the BRICS is rooted in the relationship between the two great demographic superpowers of the alliance: India and China. “Although it is very possible that China and India will become the second and third economies of the world, respectively, by the end of this decade, there is less and less in common between them,” Matthew Lynn wrote in El Economista newspaper. In fact, he goes so far as to point out that “the true geopolitical conflict of the 21st century may not be between China and the West, but between China and India.”
Division over Ukraine
The organization of this year’s BRICS summit in South Africa sparked a number of tensions due to the possible attendance of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ultimately did not attend, being under arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his war in Ukraine. As a member of the Court, South Africa would have been forced to detain him upon entering the country.
Putin’s war has caused cracks in the BRICS. In March, a special session was held at the United Nations General Assembly to approve the resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine. The resolution was approved with the favorable vote of 141 countries of the 193 member states, with five negative votes: Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea. However, 35 countries abstained, including China, India and South Africa, members of the BRICS bloc, along with Russia. Brazil voted in favor of the resolution.
A revitalized G20?
Jim O’Neill posed the question: What would an expanded BRICS mean? His answer to it includes points: 1) the symbolic power of the BRICS will grow; 2) The United States and China will dominate their respective groups even more than in the past; 3) what the world needs is a revitalized G20, including the same key players, plus others; the G20 remains the best forum for addressing truly global issues; 4) The BRICS group could be more effective if key members had shared goals.
The BRICS “creator” advises reviving the G20, the main forum for international economic cooperation, made up of the 20 most important economies in the world (19 plus the EU), which represent 85% of the world’s total gross income. It so happens that India, co-leader of the BRICS, holds the presidency of the group until November 30 of this year.
Is it viable to salvage the G20, to include both the United States and China? Or are we moving toward a new international order? The biggest obstacle is Xi Jinping’s reluctance, some researchers told CNN. Regarding the possibility that some or all BRICS end up becoming satellites of China, according to the Financial Times hypothesis, abdicating their autonomy would certainly be a high price to pay.
Translated from Spanish by Lucia K. Maher