The 15th BRICS Summit is scheduled to take place from August 22 to 24 at Johannesburg. The leaders of Brazil, India, China and South Africa will attend in person. Russia’s President Putin will not attend in person. The official reason for this is that his presence is required more at home than in South Africa because of the war in Ukraine. But it would have made for a diplomatic kerfuffle if he attended, considering South Africa is a ratified member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and that the ICC has issued an arrest warrant against President Putin. South Africa may have heaved a quiet sigh of relief at Putin’s absence.
This is a crucial summit-level meeting since the BRICS grouping faces a fork in the road. It may be worth recalling that the BRICS grouping held its first summit in 2009, when it was still BRIC, but then subsequently invited South Africa to join in 2010 to become BRICS. BRICS then had the following strategic objectives:
(a) A non-Western grouping which sought increased geopolitical clout for its members;
(b) All rising economies, with China leading the way thereby signifying that the economic centre of gravity has shifted from the North to the South;
(c) Countering the Bretton Woods institutions like IMF and the World Bank by setting up institutions like the New Development Bank for the purpose of mobilising resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in emerging markets and developing countries; and
(d) More generally to pursue the desirable goal of a multipolar world.
It is not easy to assess the performance of the BRICS grouping for the last 13 years or so. There have certainly been some achievements in soft areas like economic cooperation and people to people ties. Such People to people exchanges include the Young Diplomats Forum, Parliamentarian Forum, Trade Union Forum, Civil BRICS as well as the Media Forum. It is fair to say that China has outgrown the other members in economic and military terms, bringing about a certain imbalance to the grouping. The New Development Bank is certainly a showpiece of BRICS cooperation.
For India, the forthcoming BRICS summit is a crucial one for the following reasons:
(1) There are reports that many countries are seeking membership of BRICS. China seems the keenest to allow this (Russia may be expected to go along with China) , with South Africa in tow. Brazil is reluctant but India will probably be the most concerned. India’s concern is linked to expansion of membership leading to a dilution of the original purpose for which BRICS was established and its legitimate disquietude of it increasingly becoming a China-dominated geopolitical grouping aimed at countering the US/West. India has therefore asked for the enunciation of principles and criteria for expansion of membership which must be agreed upon by consensus. It is also clear that if the grouping goes ahead with expansion, the original criteria which were significant in determining membership in BRICS will take a backseat, fundamentally changing the character of the grouping.
(2) China’s motives for pushing expansion of membership is also cause for concern. It is now less to do with the original principle of seeking a multipolar world and more for serving its own geopolitical ends such as its tussle for supremacy with the US. Indeed, India’s best argument is that BRICS should not become collateral in what is a great-power battle for supremacy between China and the US.
(3) China also wants BRICS to emerge as some kind of a forum of the Global South, something India may not be sure about, given its own credentials and ambitions to be the voice of the Global South.
(4) India-China ties themselves are under severe strain and these cannot but be expected to play a role in India’s eventual stand on the grouping’s future. There is a possible Modi-Jinping face to face meeting on the side lines of the BRICS summit. Could some understanding between China and India emerge on the border conflict which has caused Sino-Indian ties to nosedive? If so, could that also influence matters such as expansion of BRICS membership?
The fifteenth BRICS summit may provide answers to some, if not all of the questions above. Johannesburg should attract the attention of all for the next couple of days.
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 