Russia
Source: en.interaffairs.ru

As the United States and its allies are less able to unilaterally shape the global order, many countries are seeking to boost their own autonomy by courting alternative centers of power, ‘Foreign Affairs’ complains.

In late October, the group of countries known as the BRICS will convene in the Russian city of Kazan for its annual summit. The meeting is set to be a moment of triumph for its host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will preside over this gathering of an increasingly hefty bloc even as he prosecutes his brutal war in Ukraine. The group’s acronym comes from its first five members — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — but it has now grown to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia also participates in the group’s activities.

Together, these ten countries represent 35.6 percent of global GDP in purchasing power parity terms (more than the G-7’s 30.3 percent) and 45 percent of the world’s population (the G-7 represents less than ten percent). In the coming years, BRICS is likely to expand further, with more than 40 countries expressing interest in joining, including emerging powers such as Indonesia.

Putin will be able to claim that despite the West’s best efforts to isolate Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, his country not only is far from being an international pariah but also is now a pivotal member of a dynamic group that will shape the future of the international order. That message is not mere rhetorical posturing, nor is it simply a testament to the Kremlin’s skillful diplomacy with non-Western countries or to those countries’ self-interested, pragmatic engagement with Russia.
As the United States and its allies are less able to unilaterally shape the global order, many countries are seeking to boost their own autonomy by courting alternative centers of power. Unable or unwilling to join the exclusive clubs of the United States and its junior partners, such as the G-7 or U.S.-led military blocs, and increasingly frustrated by the global financial institutions underpinned by the United States, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, these countries are keen to expand their options and establish ties with non-American initiatives and organizations. BRICS stands out among such initiatives as the most significant, relevant, and potentially influential.

Fifteen years ago, the global financial crisis that originated in the United States stoked interest in the BRIC grouping. The failure of American regulators to prevent the crisis and the exposed inefficiency of the Bretton Woods institutions — not to mention China’s sustained spectacular growth as Western economies struggled — spurred calls to redistribute global economic power and responsibility from the West to the developing world. BRICS was the most representative club to express this sentiment. Back then, however, Moscow and its partners largely worked to improve the existing order, not torpedo it. BRICS announced the New Development Bank (NDB) in 2014 to complement existing international institutions and to set up a financial safety net that offered liquidity should any of its members face short-term difficulties. It was meant to supplement, not rival, the World Bank and the IMF.

Russia may be the vocal spearhead of the bid to use BRICS to create an alternative to the U.S.-led global order, but China is the real driving force behind the grouping’s expansion. During the global financial crisis of 2008-10, Beijing shared Moscow’s desire to make BRICS more relevant. China wanted to position itself as part of a dynamic group of developing countries that sought to gradually rebalance global institutions to more fairly reflect shifts in economic and technological power. Under Chinese President Hu Jintao, however, Beijing was unwilling to claim leadership of the grouping, still guided by Deng Xiaoping’s formula of “keeping a low profile.”

As U.S.-Chinese relations have plummeted in the last decade, Beijing’s foreign policy has grown more radical. Chinese leaders are convinced that the United States won’t willingly allow China to become the dominant power in Asia, much less deign to share global leadership with Beijing. China believes that the United States is instrumentalizing the alliances and institutions that underpin the current global order to constrain China’s rise. In response, Beijing has embarked on projects such as Xi’s overlapping Global Security Initiative, Global Development Initiative, and Global Civilization Initiative, all of which challenge the West’s right to unilaterally define universal rules and seek to undermine the notion of universal values in areas such as human rights. These initiatives point to China’s desire to build a different order rather than simply reform the current one.

China and Russia now have similar ambitions for the BRICS, making Putin and Xi a powerful tandem. Both want to dethrone the United States as the global hegemon, and to that end, Beijing and Moscow seek to make alternative financial and tech platforms immune to U.S. pressure. Deepening multilateralization through BRICS seems like the best path forward. Like Putin, Xi casts this effort in moral terms. As he said at a BRICS summit in 2023, “We do not barter away principles, succumb to external pressure, or act as vassals of others. International rules must be written and upheld jointly by all countries based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, rather than dictated by those with the strongest muscles or the loudest voice.”

Beyond rhetoric, China has led the effort — with Russian backing — to add members to the BRICS. Beijing advocated a maximalist approach, trying to rope in as many countries as possible. It wants to be the leader of a strong and sizable bloc.

Despite the growing divergence between the explicitly anti-Western camp in the BRICS and the nonaligned camp, all members still agree on a number of fundamental issues that explain why the grouping has become vital to its members. In the view of most countries in the grouping, the world is moving from U.S.-led unipolarity to multipolarity, with geopolitics now defined by the competition among several centers of power. The BRICS grouping, despite its internal tensions, remains a key platform for actively shaping this process. Indeed, seen from capitals across the global South, multipolarity is the safest way to constrain hegemonic power, which, unrestrained, represents a threat to international rules and norms and to global stability. Western policymakers often overlook this baseline agreement among BRICS countries and the part it has played in keeping all members committed to the grouping since its inception.

This shared perspective also explains why much of the developing world looks forward to greater multipolarity in the global order and does not pine for Washington’s or the West’s undisputed preeminence. For many countries, joining BRICS is a seriously attractive proposition. For their part, China and Russia welcome the large number of countries that have expressed interest in joining, including Algeria, Colombia, and Malaysia.

In the West, some critics of BRICS dismiss the outfit as a motley crew that deserves no serious attention. Others believe it is a direct threat to the global order. Both views lack nuance: the emergence of BRICS as a political grouping reflects genuine grievances over the inequities of the U.S.-led order and cannot simply be waved away.

For the United States and other Western powers, the dynamics inside BRICS underline the necessity of taking the grouping — and the underlying dissatisfaction with the current order — seriously. It is entirely reasonable for rising powers such as Brazil to search for hedging options and to feel dissatisfied with how the United States has steered the existing system.

Western powers should focus on not making things worse by, for example, trying to scare middle powers away from joining BRICS, which smacks of paternalism and quasi-colonial interference.
Rather than bemoaning the emergence of the BRICS, the West should court those member states that have a stake in making sure that the grouping does not become an overtly anti-Western outfit intent on undermining the global order.

Russia
Source: mid.ru

The global significance of BRICS

A fair share of questions asked by representatives of the media always have to do with BRICS, the Russian chairmanship and the upcoming summit, which is only three weeks away.

The BRICS summit will open in Kazan on October 22. We have been repeatedly asked about the significance of this association for the new, emerging polycentric world, about its accomplishments, as well as what we are offering, and how this can be explained to the average person without overusing political slogans or conceptual philosophy.
Allow me to start by stating that BRICS is a unique format of interaction between states representing different religions, civilisations and cultures, aimed at creating favourable conditions for economic growth of the member states, addressing social problems, and enhancing innovative human potential. In accomplishing these goals, the member states are guided by the principles of equality, mutual respect, openness and a balance of interests.

The first ministerial meeting – in the BRIC format at the time – was held on September 20, 2006 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York at President Vladimir Putin’s initiative. It was attended by the foreign ministers of Russia, Brazil, and China, and India’s defence minister, who expressed interest in advancing multifaceted cooperation in a quadripartite format. In 2011, South Africa joined the group.

The decision to expand BRICS made at the Johannesburg summit in 2023 can be described as historic without exaggeration. On January 1, 2024, Egypt, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia joined the association. With the inclusion of the new members, the BRICS palette became even richer, brighter and more diverse. Its international standing and positive influence on global politics, and its capacity to defend the interests of the Global South and East – or the Global Majority – became significantly stronger. Since then, more than 30 countries have applied for rapprochement with BRICS in one form or another, which definitely reinforces my point.

The member states share similar views on the modern world; they support multipolarity as the foundation for sustainable development, the central coordinating role of the UN, the principles and norms of international law, rejection of forceful pressure policies or infringement on the sovereignty of other countries. I am confident that in the current conditions, BRICS has enough weight to promote its own solidarity vision of the future world order, which should reflect the multipolar realities and be based on the cultural and civilisational diversity of the modern world.
The group’s economic influence is steadily growing. As President of Russia Vladimir Putin noted at the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week International Forum on September 26, in the foreseeable future “this growth will be concentrated not in Europe or North America. They are gradually losing their weight in the global economy. This growth will shift to BRICS countries and the states that are willing to join our association and view equal cooperation with due respect for national interests as the promising way to proceed.”

Another shared objective that keeps our association together is to reform the outdated global financial and economic architecture, which does not reflect the increased economic weight of the BRICS countries and other regional centres of power. We reject unlawful economic sanctions, which spiral into trade wars. We insist that the dollar and other international financial instruments should not be weaponised and deem it unacceptable to use them to coerce other countries, impose political will on them, and sometimes even destroy their economies if they are in no position to resist.

The development of partnership within the BRICS is our strategic priority. This year’s theme of Russian chairmanship is Strengthening Multilateralism for Equitable Global Development and Security. Its main priorities are formulated in the Concept of the Russian Federation’s Chairmanship of BRICS in 2024 approved by President Vladimir Putin.

In our work, we primarily strive to stand up to the challenges and threats of our time, and find collective solutions to the global challenges of international development. Specifically, we focus on a wider use of national currencies, joint payment instruments and platforms in mutual trade transactions. Our combined efforts are aimed at promoting and building an interconnected and interdependent international system on a non-aligned and non-hegemonic basis, which would give precedence to such common priorities as economic growth, poverty alleviation, food, climate and water security, combating international terrorism, extremism, and organised crime, etc. Our immediate objectives are to ensure the seamless integration of new members into the existing BRICS cooperation mechanisms without compromising their effectiveness, as well as to develop the modalities of a new BRICS partner country category along with a list of potential candidates.

The work within the BRICS framework is non-confrontational and constructive. It is a viable alternative to a world living by someone else’s, alien rules. The association is building a new ecosystem of political and economic relations between its member countries and with other states of the Global Majority.

Russia
Source: brics-russia2024.ru

Innopolis, Tatarstan, hosted the BRICS Communications Ministers’ Meeting and the Digital BRICS Forum on 26–27 September as part of Russia’s BRICS chairship.

The Ministerial Meeting was held in an expanded format for the first time and saw BRICS delegation heads address the plenary session ‘Sovereignty vs. Interconnectivity: Finding a Balance’ before the adoption of the 10th BRICS Communications Ministers’ Meeting Declaration.

The document addresses the most important areas of joint activities within BRICS in information, telecommunications, and the digital economy:

• Artificial intelligence (AI),
• Digital infrastructure,
• Digital competencies,
• Steps moving forward.

The declaration stressed the important contribution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to modern economies and society and the importance of involving BRICS member states in the creation of an inclusive, open, secure, stable, accessible, peaceful, and compatible ICT environment.
BRICS delegation heads considered a Russian initiative to establish an AI Alliance for all interested countries, as well as a Russian AI Code of Ethics with recommendations for creating a more secure environment to develop AI technologies. The participants also identified a need for a BRICS Initiative for the protection of children in the digital environment, where knowledge and best practices could be exchanged and efforts combined to create a safer digital environment for children and encourage the development of relevant social projects.

“With the rapid development of digital technologies, it has become imperative for BRICS to develop common digital security standards to protect citizens from cyberthreats and create a unified digital field for more effective international cooperation built on mutual respect and openness,” Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation, Executive Secretary of the Organizing Committee for Russia’s Chairship of BRICS in 2024 Anton Kobyakov said.

BRICS representatives attending the Digital Forum shared information and knowledge, practices and trends, initiatives, and their own countries’ digital achievements in artificial intelligence, digital competencies, and digital infrastructure.

The 11th BRICS Communications Ministers’ Meeting will be chaired by Brazil in 2025.
The Roscongress Foundation manages the events of Russia’s BRICS chairship.

South Africa
Source: www.iol.co.za

In a powerful testament to the strength of global unity and the spirit of cooperation, Dr Iqbal Survé, Sekunjalo Chairman and chairperson of the BRICS Media Forum, captivated audiences with a moving speech at the opening of The BRICS Universe exhibition.

Held at the Iziko Planetarium in Cape Town, this international event, a product of Russia’s BRICS Chairmanship, showcased awe-inspiring images of UNESCO Creative Cities from BRICS nations.

The exhibition, hosted by Russian Consul Aleksei Malenko, featured extraordinary visuals captured from space by Russian cosmonauts Ivan Wagner and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, along with contributions from photographers across the BRICS member states. These celestial snapshots offered a profound reminder of our planet’s beauty and the interconnectedness of its inhabitants.

In attendance was Sergey Kud-Sverchkov himself, the distinguished cosmonaut who spent six months in space, making Dr Survé’s words even more poignant. Addressing these resilient images of Earth, Survé paid tribute to the endurance and technological prowess of cosmonauts, and reflected on the unique perspective gained from looking at Earth from the vastness of space.

“When you look down from that space capsule at what we call Mother Earth, our planet, what is so significant is how small our planet is from high above in the sky,” Dr Survé remarked. “Sometimes we forget that we are a tiny part of the universe, and it is for that reason that we need to celebrate our humanity, to share our common experiences, and to recognise what makes human beings great, rather than emphasising our differences.”

Dr. Survé’s speech underscored the critical importance of global solidarity, especially in times rife with division. By highlighting the interconnectedness illuminated through the space imagery, he pointed to the shared humanity that is central to the BRICS partnership’s mission to foster unity across the Global South.

A particularly stirring moment came when Dr Survé recounted South Africa's historic bonds with Russia, China, India, and Brazil, forged during the anti-Apartheid struggle.

With heartfelt gratitude, he honoured the indispensable support from the Russian Soviet Union in aiding South Africa's liberation, a story of solidarity that continues to inspire cooperation within BRICS today.

"We could never forget the support given by the Russian Soviet Union during our struggle for freedom and liberation, just as we remember the support from China, India, and Brazil. This is the bond that binds us all," he stated.

Clarifying that these connections transcend diplomacy, Dr Survé emphasised that they are deeply rooted in a shared commitment to justice, freedom, and equality. BRICS nations, united by these core values, strive to be a collective force for good in a world often marred by conflict and competition.

In a resonant conclusion, Dr Survé shared a story of international collaboration, recounting a moment when a Russian space station rescued an American astronaut amid political tensions. This powerful example illustrated the potential for humanity to unite even during strife. "Despite the differences and difficulties between countries, which in time we will overcome, there is hope for our future," Survé concluded.

This tale of cooperation encapsulates the core message of BRICS’ potential to cultivate global peace and collaboration. Dr Survé’s speech, echoing through the majestic visual setting of space imagery, highlighted an enduring truth: political and economic challenges may come and go, but the shared humanity that binds us is unfathomably stronger.

The BRICS Universe exhibition, with its breath-taking visuals, provided the perfect backdrop for Dr Survé’s call to embrace a future anchored in mutual respect, collaboration, and the celebration of shared human spirit.

As BRICS nations advance on the world stage, Survé’s message stands as a timely and inspiring reminder of the strength found in unity.