Putin, Xi, BRICS allies see chance to shake up world order
News Desk :
The world’s leading emerging market powers have complained for years about being sidelined by wealthy nations.
Now they are mounting their most ambitious challenge yet to the status quo.
The BRICS bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will use an annual leaders’ summit in Johannesburg this week to begin the process of enlisting more members to bolster its global heft, a push driven mainly by Chinese President Xi Jinping but also backed by Russia and South Africa.
There will also be talks on how to accelerate a shift away from the dollar, in part by increasing the use of local currencies in trade between members, which is surging, according to a draft agenda seen by Bloomberg.
The bloc has failed to convert its growing economic might into significant political clout since it began holding summits 15 years ago.
But the current splintering of the world order amid rising US-China frictions and the splits over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine provides a fresh opening for it to become a louder voice of the Global South and potentially to challenge the US and its allies, reports Bloomberg.
“We want to make the BRICS very strong politically, very strong financially,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The summit could see the bloc’s first expansion since South Africa was added in 2010.
High on the list of potential candidates are Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, as well as the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Egypt. But India wants the process to be gradual.
An expanded group would represent about half of global output by 2040, Bloomberg Economics estimates show, double the share of the Group of Seven, a reversal from the turn of this century.
A bigger BRICS would account for almost half of the global population, up from 42% currently, according to Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s ambassador to the bloc.
“These countries have risen economically, they have voiced their concerns, they’re now capable of offering alternatives if their voices are not heard,” said Karin Vazquez, a Shanghai-based associate professor of diplomatic practice at India’s O.P. Jindal Global University.
To date, deep divisions among members have limited the consensus-driven bloc’s ability to increase its sway at institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank or the United Nations Security Council.
A BRICS development bank has lent only $32.8 billion in eight years in operation, a tiny fraction of the amount the IMF and World Bank have disbursed over the period.
Suggestions that the bloc introduce a common currency haven’t gone anywhere.
