Can BRICS create a new world order? BY Ronelle Snyders

[Nat Quinn]

Dozens of nations want to join the five-nation club. But to challenge the US-led global hierarchy, BRICS must first overcome internal problems.

They are gigantic economies, with even larger populations and even bigger ambitions. From Tuesday, leaders of the group of nations known as the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will gather for a three-day summit, which is expected to attract attention from capitals around the world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the conclave in Johannesburg, South Africa from August 22-24, but will participate via video conference to save the country from embarrassing to host a leader with an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant against him related to Moscow’s war in Ukraine. South Africa is a member of the ICC and would have been obliged under international law to arrest Putin should he visit the country.

Yet while the conflict in Ukraine and deepening geopolitical tensions between the United States and China serve as the backdrop for the summit, the BRICS meeting is likely to highlight the group’s growing prestige as a force challenging a long-dominant, Washington-led world order.

The expansion of BRICS is expected to be high on the agenda. This is a club in demand. From Algeria to Argentina, at least 40 countries have expressed interest in joining the grouping.

Central to the group’s appeal is its rising economic scope. The five BRICS countries now have a combined gross domestic product (GDP) greater than that of the G7 in purchasing power parity terms. In nominal terms, the BRICS countries account for 26 percent of global GDP. Despite this, they get only 15 percent of voting power from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Coupled with grievances about such imbalances is growing concern in the global south that the U.S. could arm the dollar through sanctions as it has against Russia. This has led to BRICS countries individually and collectively seeking to reduce their dependence on the US currency while increasing bilateral trade in their own currencies.

Agreeing that something needs to change is one thing, but agreeing on how to work together is another. India and China have been mired in a tense border battle since May 2020. Meanwhile, India, South Africa and Brazil want good relations with the West as much as they do with China and Russia.

So, will the BRICS emerge as an alternative economic and geopolitical pillar for the US and its allies? Or can their internal differences limit what the group can achieve?

The short answer: The onslaught of BRICS countries is likely to grow, but the bloc is far more likely to offer piecemeal economic and diplomatic alternatives to the U.S.-led world order than dramatically replace it, analysts say. This could still lead to more tensions with the West, as the group’s leaders seek to chart out an independent path in a world in flux. But to remain effective, the BRICS will have to manage the diverse priorities of its member states – a challenge that will not be easy for the cluster to address.

‘Vote’ of the Global South
In the opening speech at the BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting in South Africa on June 1, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar described the current concentration of economic power as one that “leaves too many nations at the mercy of too few”.

It’s a sentiment that resonates across the developing world, where the United Nations Security Council’s veto power remains limited to five nations, based on an understanding rooted in 1945, at the end of World War II.

In recent years, cracks in that U.S.-led model have deepened. China, a dominant power in global economy as well as a military powerhouse, is testing the limits of Washington’s influence. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Riyadh last week and met Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the latest step toward a groundbreaking normalization of ties between the traditional Middle Eastern rivals, mediated by China.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the subsequent strengthening of relations between Moscow and Beijing – in the face of Western condemnation – further accelerated the split. India, Brazil and South Africa have trampled cautiously, refusing to join Western sanctions or other actions against Russia, while also distancing themselves from Moscow’s justifications for the war.

With the West’s footprint partially retreated to a part of the world – the latest case being Niger and the Sahel – there is a special chorus among Africa, Latin America and emerging Asian powers such as India to uplift the post-Cold War unipolar system.

Russia and China have presented themselves as champions of this move away from a US-led order, whose rules – in the eyes of the Global South – Washington itself routinely disregards.

In July, Putin was on a full charm offensive at a summit in St Petersburg with African leaders and officials, quoting Nelson Mandela and raising the names of anti-colonial heroes such as Gamal Abdel Nasser and Patrice Lumumba.

“I think it’s time to correct the historical mistake against the African continent,” he was quoted as discussing a proposal to reform the UN Security Council, and include African nations as permanent members.

India has also actively demanded that the African Union get a seat at the G20 summit, which New Delhi will host next month.

“There is definitely a space to carve out a new world order,” said Vivek Mishra, a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think tank in New Delhi. That space, he said, was created by a convergence of two factors: the global south finding its voice and looking for nations capable of defending its interests and Russia and China finding themselves “at odds with the West in an unprecedented way.”

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