Russia
Source: en.interaffairs.ru

On October 22-24 the Russian city of Kazan will be playing host to the 16^th summit of BRICS. Over the years of cooperation, the organization has achieved significant results in a number of key areas. In terms of total GDP calculated using purchasing power parity, the BRICS countries overtook the G7 countries already in 2018. [i] According to figures provided by TASS, by the close of 2024, this difference will grow even more, with the BRICS countries projected to account for 36.7 percent of global GDP calculated using purchasing power parity (PPP), compared to 29.6 percent in the G7 countries.

BRICS emerged as the leading non-Western countries’ response to the global financial crisis, as the ineffectiveness of the Bretton Woods institutions had become all too obvious, just as the rapid rise of new economic powers. The world was waking up to the fact that the West’s claims to global economic dominion simply held no water.

"BRICS has become the most representative club expressing these sentiments." However, even though the high potential of the union's members was not in doubt, it had yet to be realized. Based on the results of the first ten years, skeptics even predicted the collapse of the bloc, claiming that the five founding countries did not have "... a common ideology, political system, or even strong ties at the political or economic level."[ii]

The reality turned out to be completely different though. The most important factor behind the consolidation of BRICS was the economic "cold war," which Washington, alarmed by the rise of new centers of power, tried to impose first on China and then on Russia. US and EU attempts to make the rest of the world choose whether they were “for or against” Beijing or Moscow, to isolate Russia and China on the world stage, only alienated the largest and most independent non-Western countries, speeding up the process of their integration. BRICS is thus becoming one of the main "assemblage points."

The 2015 BRICS summit demonstrated the futility of Western attempts to "isolate" Russia. Despite some serious contradictions between some of the new bloc’s members, including geopolitical ones, they start looking eye to eye on a significant list of issues, including common approaches to international problems. The association is increasingly being perceived in the world as an alternative to the "Big Seven." The escalating tensions around Ukraine have only added to this general realization. The previous BRICS summit, held in South Africa, showed that the more pressure the Western countries tried to exert on the bloc’s members, the stronger it became. Amid their increasingly tense relations with the West, BRICS members have rooted for expanding the bloc and deepening cooperation. Dozens of countries have shown interest in joining the organization, which they see as a promising promoter of their interests. More than 40 countries have either applied to join BRICS or expressed interest in doing so. Since January 1, 2024, five more countries (Egypt, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia) have joined the organization.

Realizing the fact that the United States is using the alliances and institutions that underpin the current world order to contain the rise of non-Western countries, the BRICS members are developing initiatives meant to show that they are all willing to challenge the West’s desire to unilaterally define “universal” rules. Increasingly aware of the harmful effects of US dominance, they are systematically working to create alternative financial and technological platforms that are immune to Washington’s pressure.

Thus, in the face of the politicization of the IMF and the World Bank, BRICS has been working hard to promote financial institutions capable of overcoming Western restrictions on financing development projects in the Global South. In 2014, they established the New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2016. The BRICS Contingent Reserve Pool Agreement was signed in 2014, offering foreign exchange credit lines to allow the member states’ financially strained central banks to borrow hard currency. The New Development Bank has already provided about $40 billion worth of loans to finance more than 100 projects. The NDB does not require BRICS membership to participate, and Bangladesh, Egypt, the UAE, Uruguay and Algeria have all joined in over the past three years.

BRICS is actively diversifying relations between its members. In addition to annual summits, there is a growing number of meetings held involving scientists, entrepreneurs, government officials, politicians, and experts from member countries and friendly states. During its chairmanship, Russia helped increase the number of joint working groups several times, thus adding new dynamics and depth to interaction at the interstate level. The number of experts involved in discussions has increased significantly, thus improving the quality of elaboration of issues of interest to the BRICS members and their partners. The summit in Kazan will be the first meeting of the BRICS’ expanded lineup. All members of the group agree that the world is moving from unipolarity, led by the United States, to multi-polarity, and the balance of power in the international system is now determined by competition between several centers of power. They also agree that attempts to preserve a hegemonic international system pose a threat to international rules and norms, as well as global stability. Even though the interests of some of its members may differ in certain areas, BRICS is seen by its participants and the countries that seek to join it as a key structure capable of exerting a constructive influence on these processes.

Washington’s attempts to impose its agenda on the world through Western alliances are prompting more and more countries to look for an effective balance of economic power. A year ago, the British magazine The Economist wrote that BRICS could become a real counterweight to the G7, since the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is “too oriented toward Eurasia,” and “the significance of Western participants [in the G20] is too great.” Therefore, for a number of America’s current nominal allies, joining BRICS fits into their efforts to restructure relations with the United States and gravitate closer to Russia and China. While the big countries of the Global South are striving to play an independent role, they also want to join an association capable of talking on equal terms with the West on any hot button international issue. In June 2022, the G7 tried to present the world with an “alternative” to the burgeoning BRICS, announcing the launch of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII).

However, Western initiatives are quite general, if not abstract. The rhetoric about “new strategic corridors” and “new paths” of cooperation is rarely followed up with specific projects. Moreover, these initiatives are designed, directly or covertly, by the need to sever the countries’ economic and financial ties with China and, in recent years, Russia. Observers wonder just what the US and EU might have to do to persuade other countries to abandon mutually beneficial projects with major economic partners simply because “Western countries do not like them.”
One should not forget about the difficult financial and economic situation most of the G7 countries now have to deal with. The IMF predicts that by the end of this year Japan's public debt will jump to almost 255 percent of GDP, Italy's to 139, the United States' to 123, and France's to almost 112 percent of GDP. The level of public debt will exceed 100 percent of GDP in Canada and the UK - also members of the G7. Of all the G7 countries, only Germany has a public debt-to-GDP ratio of less than 70 percent. For comparison, China's public debt is 77 percent of GDP, India's is 83 percent, Brazil's is 85 percent, and Russia's is a mere 20 percent of gross product. [iii]

Overall, BRICS has a high potential for becoming the basis of "...a new world order," since the association is capable of "...offering other countries of the world economy new paradigms for global development. Such trends in the new global economic architecture may include a restart of globalization based on a new platform of countries and regions, the creation of a new institutional system for the modernization of countries in the global economy, the creation of a new pool of reserve currencies from emerging markets, the creation of a track alternative to the Western format of global economic development, and the creation of new regional blocs and platforms for their coordination and development.” [iv]

The processes of global governance are going through a profound, systemic transformation. Institutions that lack the shortcomings of the current, increasingly formalized and rigid structures are coming to the fore. BRICS is perceived by its participants as a partnership on strategic issues, aimed at cooperation and finding solutions to global development problems that are beneficial for all. Another thing that makes BRICS attractive to others is the absence of an ideologically determined agenda, inclusiveness and equal consideration of the interests of all participants, the absence of requirements for the adoption of formal obligations of a non-economic nature. The association does not try to impose a rigid "universal" agenda on other countries. Instead, it acts using methods of "soft balancing, through the formulation of norms of sovereignty, trade, development and other aspects of international law." The agenda proposed by BRICS attracts a growing number of countries around the world. The evolution of the existing world economic order is an objective fact that requires new international institutions. BRICS is the most influential and promising association of the new generation. Since BRICS’ very inception, its members have consistently been working to transform the existing international system of economic relations. As a result, the dynamics of the BRICS countries' development clearly demonstrate how the redistribution of global economic power from the West to the majority of the world countries is taking place.

The views of the author are his own and may differ from the position of the Editorial Board.
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[i] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1412425/gdp-ppp-share-world-gdp-g7-brics/
[ii] https://inosmi.ru/20200828/248020112.html
[iii] https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/GG_DEBT_GDP@GDD/CAN/FRA/DEU/ITA/JPN/GBR/USA
[iv] https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/analytics/briks-kak-osnova-novogo-miroporyadka-kakovy-perspektivy/

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Keywords: BRICS , economy , G7 , geopolitics , summit in Kazan , world order

Russia
Source: en.kremlin.ru

Vladimir Putin attended the plenary meeting of the Interrelation of Times and Civilisations – Basis of Peace and Development international forum in Ashgabat dedicated to the 300th birth anniversary of Turkmen poet and philosopher Magtymguly Pyragy.

The heads of delegations attending the Interrelation of Times and Civilisations – Basis of Peace and Development international forum in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Turkmenistan. Photo: Sergei Bobylev, TASS

Before the meeting, President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov held a welcome ceremony for the heads of delegations attending the international forum.

The Russian delegates attending the event included Deputy Prime Minister and co-chair of the Russian-Turkmen Commission on Economic Cooperation Alexei Overchuk, Deputy Chief of the Presidential Executive Office and Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Turkmenistan Ivan Volynkin, and Head of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov.

Vladimir Putin had a brief conversation with President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of the forum. The leaders exchanged mutual invitations for official visits to Russia and Pakistan, respectively, and confirmed their countries’ intention and political interest in strengthening bilateral ties across all areas.

Vladimir Putin also talked with Speaker of the Turkish Parliament Numan Kurtulmus and reaffirmed that he was looking forward to meeting with President of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the BRICS summit in Kazan.
* * *
Address by the President of Russia

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Berdimuhamedov, ladies and gentlemen, friends,
The Interrelation of Times and Civilisations – Basis of Peace and Development international forum, dedicated to the 300th birth anniversary of the outstanding Turkmen thinker, philosopher poet and public figure Magtymguly Pyragy, is of great importance today.

Magtymguly Pyragy is rightfully regarded as a great humanist and the founding figure of Turkmen poetry and literature, with his creative legacy forming an integral part of the world's greatest cultural treasures.

Magtymguly was one of the first to reveal the beauty of the Turkmen language in all its diversity and richness. He had a unique poetic style, expressing thoughts concisely, but with a depth of meaning and aphoristic clarity. Many of his poetic lines became popular catchphrases – aphorisms, proverbs, and sayings. Magtymguly’s books were not only read, they were kept at home as sacred relics.

There is something I would like to highlight: during the Second World War — or, as it was known in the Soviet Union, the Great Patriotic War, relatives of Turkmen soldiers would quote his poems in their letters sent to the frontlines, trying to reassure the warriors and inspire courage and valour. I will quote one of those phrases for you: “All our tribes are marching under the righteous banners from all sides.”

Magtymguly’s works have been translated into Russian. It is reliably known that the poet actually lived for a long time in the village of Funtovo near Astrakhan. The area has been densely populated by Turkmen diaspora groups since the late 17^th century to the present day. In 2019, a school built there at Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s initiative was named after Magtymguly. Astrakhan has a monument to Magtymguly; in September, a bust of this outstanding poet was unveiled in Moscow.

Far ahead of his time, Magtymguly never halted his creative and spiritual search and always strove for knowledge and truth. Due to his genius, he was able to anticipate the future of his land and people. In his works, Magtymguly invariably called for purity, justice and equality, not only in relations between individuals, but also between states and nations. A visionary thinker, he advocated the high ideals of friendship and good neighbourliness, and tried to convey these thoughts to future generations, calling for harmony and responsibility, tolerance and understanding, respect and solidarity.

This message remains relevant and meaningful to reasonable people today, and it holds even greater significance amid the current global challenges, when unprecedented threats stem from civilisational divides and ethnic and religious conflicts. International relations have entered an era of profound transformation, and a new world order is emerging that reflects the world's diversity. This process is inevitable and irreversible.

Emerging powerful centres of economic growth, financial, and political influence are increasingly evident, particularly within the Global East and the Global South at large. These newly established centres are committed to preserving and strengthening their sovereignty and socio-cultural identity, while pursuing harmonious development in accordance with their traditions and based on national interests.

In the spirit of Magtymguly's philosophical views, the global majority nations, which both Russia and every other country participating in this forum are part of, advocate for a more equitable distribution of wealth and the consistent democratisation of the international landscape. We firmly believe that universal peace and comprehensive development can only be achieved if every nation's views are taken into account and every state's right to have its own sovereign policy, worldview, traditions, and religious beliefs is respected.

I’d like to emphasise that Russia endorses the broadest possible international dialogue concerning the parameters of interaction in our emerging multipolar world. It is open to discussing the establishment of a new world order with all our friends, partners, and like-minded people, including within the frameworks of the CIS, the EAEU, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and BRICS.

In this context, we are preparing for the forthcoming BRICS and BRICS Plus/Outreach format summits scheduled to be held in Kazan from October 22 to 24. We would most certainly welcome our host, Mr Berdimuhamedov, along with many other leaders attending this forum, to join us at the events in Kazan.

Before concluding, I would like to take this opportunity to extend special gratitude to the current leadership of Turkmenistan – the President and the national leader of the Turkmen people, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov – for their commitment to the principles articulated by Magtymguly and their significant contribution to maintaining peace and stability in our shared region, as well as to expanding multifaceted cooperation and partnership.

Thank you for your attention.

USA
Source: carnegieendowment.org

With the addition of new members in BRICS+, the group of emerging powers will be more globally representative­—but also face more internal divisions.

This month, Russian President Vladimir Putin will host the first-ever summit of BRICS+ from October 22 to 24 in the Tatarstan city of Kazan. There, the founding members of BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—will formally welcome into their fold five new members: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Putin has also invited more than two dozen other countries that have applied for or are considering membership in the expanding club. The gathering is meant to send an unmistakable signal: Despite the West’s best efforts to isolate it, Russia has many friends around the world.

To some in the West, the emergence of BRICS+ suggests something even more ominous—a world that is fragmenting into competing blocs, thanks to intensifying geopolitical rivalry between East and West and growing mutual alienation between North and South. According to this reading, Beijing and Moscow are intent on exploiting some countries’ resentment of the United States and its wealthy world allies to consolidate an anti-Western counterweight to the venerable Group of 7 (G7), a process that is likely to paralyze global cooperation within other multilateral venues. Of particular concern is the future of the Group of 20 (G20). Even before BRICS expansion, it had become a microcosm of growing global rifts. A further hardening of these divisions would undercut the G20’s fundamental raison d'être: namely, to help bridge gulfs between—and leverage the capabilities of—important countries that are not inherently or necessarily like-minded.

These risks are real, but they should be kept in perspective. No doubt, BRICS expansion evinces a growing global dissatisfaction with and a determination to challenge the structural advantages that advanced market democracies continue to enjoy in a global order that was in many respects made by the West, for the West. Reducing those exorbitant privileges, including by creating alternative, parallel institutions, is the fundamental purpose of BRICS+. And yet the very heterogeneity of the expanding coalition—and the desire of important middle powers to retain diplomatic flexibility within the G20 and other multilateral venues—will likely forestall the emergence of rigid blocs reminiscent of the Cold War.

Rather than a frontal assault on the existing global order, the ultimate impact of BRICS+ is likely to be more measured and incremental. It will provide a diverse set of emerging and middle powers with a vehicle to advance their (sometimes) overlapping interests, and a platform to tinker—or “bricoler,” as the French would say—with the rules and institutions of the multilateral system. The United States and its Western partners can increase the prospects for such a benign scenario by avoiding alarmism and confrontation, while taking tangible steps to address emerging powers’ legitimate complaints and advance their reasonable aspirations.

BRICS, G7, and G20: Competing Minilateral Clubs

The rise of BRICS (and now BRICS+) reflects a shared belief among important emerging players that the Western-dominated, rules-based international order—and particularly the system of global economic governance—is both stacked against their interests and fundamentally outdated. It is ironic, in this light, that the acronym itself was coined by a Goldman Sachs banker, Jim O’Neill. In 2001, he famously speculated that Brazil, Russia, India, and China (which he christened the “BRIC” countries) were poised to drive global economic growth in the next decade. Thanks in part to a commodity supercycle, that prediction proved prescient. Between 2000 and 2011, the group’s share of global output expanded from 8 to 19 percent.

In June 2009, the four BRIC countries moved to turn their Wall Street moniker into something more tangible, convening their first leaders’ summit in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. Coming on the heels of the global financial crisis, which had begun in the United States and pummeled other Western nations, the summit was heavy with symbolism, suggesting the dawn of a new economic order driven by emerging economies. The following year, the group invited South Africa to join, becoming “BRICS.”

From the outset, BRICS was conceived as a geopolitical and geoeconomic counterweight to the West, which had for decades sought to manage the world economy through its own minilateral club. Those Western efforts had begun in 1975, in the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo and global economic turbulence, when the leaders of the United States, Japan, West Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy gathered at Chateau de Rambouillet, France. With the addition of Canada in 1976, the G7 was born as a standing forum for macroeconomic coordination, meeting in annual summits. (In 1977, representatives of the European Economic Community began participating in the group’s work, a role now played by the European Union.) In 1997, the G7 opened its doors one last time, admitting Russia in an effort to stabilize the reformist government of its president Boris Yeltsin. This expansion to the G8 became a fateful step, given Russia’s subsequent authoritarian turn. Over the decades, the G7/G8 also enlarged its agenda. Although it remained dominated by finance ministers and central bank governors, the forum took up a broader suite of issues, from weapons of mass destruction to debt relief, global health security, and climate change.

The global financial crisis of 2007–2008 proved a significant moment for the G8, no less than for BRICS. Unlike prior crises in Latin American in the 1980s and Asia in the late 1990s, this one started on Wall Street, the epicenter of global capitalism, and it could not be resolved in a Western boardroom. Saving the world economy required mobilizing the financial firepower and concerted action of all major economies, not least China. The U.S. administration of George W. Bush bowed to this reality in November 2008, convening the first leader-level summit of the G20 (which was, until then, an obscure coalition of finance ministers and central bankers, created in 1999). Many observers interpreted the G20’s elevation as a watershed for global governance, heralding a new era in which the world’s most important established and emerging economies would jointly manage the world economy. Encompassing two-thirds of the world’s population and more than 80 percent of its trade and GDP, the new body claimed an economic heft and representativeness that the G8 simply could not match.

The G20 performed admirably during the crisis, injecting unprecedented liquidity to stimulate global demand, revitalizing the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and creating the Financial Stability Board as a new pillar of the Bretton Woods system. While the rescue effort was imperfect, it stabilized the world economy. At the G20’s third summit in Pittsburgh in September 2009, the assembled world leaders decreed it to be the “premier forum for our international economic cooperation.”

At the time, many predicted that the G8 would quickly fade into obscurity. That did not transpire, for several reasons. First, while the G20 proved a competent crisis manager, it struggled to transition to a enduring steering committee for the world economy, thanks to its size and heterogeneity. Second, frustrating the governments of emerging economies, the G20’s rise did not fundamentally alter underlying structural inequities of global economic governance, notably the dollar’s role as the main reserve currency and Western dominance of international financial institutions. Third, rising geopolitical tensions pitting China and Russia against the West increasingly complicated concerted G20 action. Finally, Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and support for secessionists in Eastern Ukraine led Western nations to suspend Russia from the G8, where it had never truly belonged. (In January 2017, Moscow announced it would permanently leave the body.) Russia’s ejection revived the fortunes and strategic importance of the G7 as a close-knit coalition of like-minded, advanced market democracies committed to the international rule of law. (Indeed, some in Washington advocate expanding the G7 further to include two more influential democracies, Australia and South Korea, as well as the EU itself, to create a Democracies 10—or D10.)

The BRICS Record to Date

As the fortunes of the G7, G8, and the G20 have waxed and waned over the past decade and a half, the BRICS coalition has deepened its efforts to challenge Western hegemony by pressing for global governance reform, creating parallel minilateral institutions to compete with established ones, contesting the role of the dollar, and seeking to reduce U.S. leverage over the sinews of the world economy. The success of these efforts has been mixed, and BRICS has scored heavier on symbolism than substance. In 2015, the bloc established two new multilateral institutions, the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), to compete with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, respectively. Neither has made a big splash. The NDB, which also includes several non-BRICS countries as shareholders, remains undercapitalized, having disbursed over the past decade only a third of the funds the World Bank committed globally in 2021 alone. And contrary to the BRICS group’s egalitarian rhetoric, the NDB has a weighted voting formula not unlike the Bretton Woods institutions. The CRA, meanwhile, is essentially a self-insurance arrangement to address potential short-term balance of payments pressures: Shareholders contribute capital to the CRA and in exchange can secure modest resources when facing liquidity crises.
The bloc has been less successful in its aspirations to create a global reserve currency that would reduce global dependence on and perhaps ultimately replace the U.S. dollar. During last year’s summit, BRICS members committed to study the feasibility of creating a common currency, but these de-dollarization efforts face “serious headwinds,” given the dollar’s entrenched role in cross-border transactions, currency exchange, commodities markets, and debt denomination; the lack of financial infrastructure to facilitate non-dollar-denominated transactions among BRICS central banks; and continued restrictions on the convertibility of China’s currency, the renminbi. Accordingly, the BRICS countries have focused on mechanisms to facilitate trade and investment in local currencies, as well as to diversify their currency reserves.

The BRICS nations have taken some steps to reduce the ability of the United States and its allies to weaponize global interdependence, including Washington’s control of chokepoints for international financial infrastructures. China, Russia, India, and Brazil, for instance, have all created alternative settlement platforms to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) payment system. In other areas, however, BRICS aspirations to rewire the infrastructure of globalization have failed to live up to the hype. A (literal) case in point was the group’s pledge, at its 2012 summit, to create a new global network of undersea cables linking its telecommunications (while hindering U.S. and Western spying efforts). It never came to pass.

Like the G7 and G20, the BRICS group has launched an expanding array of initiatives and partnerships across multiple issue areas, from energy to health to sustainable development. The result is an impressive and increasingly dense transnational latticework of networked minilateralism, with a heavy focus on South-South cooperation. At the same time, the political, strategic, and economic heterogeneity of the BRICS coalition, and geopolitical rivalries within the group itself, have diluted its coherence and constrained its diplomatic impact.

To begin with the obvious political differences, BRICS comprises three boisterous if imperfect democracies alongside the world’s two leading authoritarian (and increasingly totalitarian) powers. Whatever shared frustrations BRICS may express about the inequities of the contemporary global order, these differences in regime type and political culture are not easily papered over, whether the topic is human rights or geopolitics. BRICS countries also differ in their strategic orientations. While Brazil, India, and South Africa have resisted U.S. pressure to support Ukraine against Russian aggression (and, in the case of Brazil and South Africa, have strenuously critiqued U.S. policy about the war in Gaza), they have rejected with equal fervor any notion of siding with Beijing and Moscow against the West, seeking instead to maximize their diplomatic freedom of action without burning any bridges. That is especially true of India, which regards BRICS as just one important vehicle among many others in advancing its multialignment strategy. Finally, the five countries occupy very different economic positions. China is by far the dominant player in this grouping, responsible for nearly 70 percent of the coalition’s total GDP, resulting in a hub-and-spoke arrangement in which the other four countries’ bilateral ties with China predominate. Their income levels also vary significantly. India’s per capita GDP ($2,389), for example, is less than a fifth of China’s ($12,720) and a sixth of Russia’s ($15,345).

Complicating matters, China and India, which each have 1.4 billion inhabitants, are engaged in fierce geopolitical rivalry in Asia—and, increasingly, globally. The two are locked in a territorial standoff in the Himalayas, maneuvering for strategic advantage in the Indian Ocean, and bickering over which is best positioned to serve as a natural leader of the Global South. India is also a member of the Quad, a strategic partnership with the United States, Japan, and Australia, whose primary if unstated purpose is to prevent Chinese hegemony in the Indo-Pacific. Scratch the surface, and geopolitical fissures emerge across the BRICS more generally. Consider the perennial topic of UN Security Council reform. While all five nations are on record as supporting enlargement, they diverge wildly on the details. China and Russia continue to resist any expansion of the council’s permanent membership—the precise status to which India, Brazil, and South Africa all aspire.

As might be expected, BRICS leaders prefer to gloss over these fundamental differences. Such was the case at the September 2023 summit in Durban, where South African President Cyril Ramaphosa gamely sought to square the circle between diversity and unity. “BRICS is an equal partnership of countries that have differing views but a shared vision for a better world,” he declared. In fact, the proceedings in Durban exposed BRICS to be a highly unequal arrangement in which China often calls the shots. In the run-up to the summit, officials from Brazil, India, and South Africa all expressed caution on the pace and scope of BRICS enlargement, including the invitation the group had extended to anti-Western Iran. In the end, Chinese President Xi Jinping steamrolled their opposition, imposing his own vision of expansion over the wishes of his partners and the much-ballyhooed BRICS commitment to consensus-based decisionmaking. Episodes like this suggest there is far less mortar in the BRICS than advertised.

BRICS+ and the Implications of Expansion

The 2023 decision by the BRICS coalition to open its doors to five new members has raised anxieties in the West that global fragmentation is accelerating and could get worse, especially as another three dozen countries are purportedly waiting in the wings. Such fears are understandable, but they should not be overblown, in part because BRICS expansion will only increase the coalition’s heterogeneity—and potential cacophony. On its face, BRICS+ is a formidable economic bloc, comprising half of the world’s population, 40 percent of its trade, and 40 percent of crude oil production and exports. The coalition can use this leverage not only to demand a more equitable international order but also to act on those ambitions, for instance by establishing a parallel energy trading system, deepening commercial links among members, creating an alternative system of development finance, reducing dollar dependence in foreign exchange transactions, and deepening technology cooperation in fields from AI to outer space. Expect BRICS+ to seek opportunities in each area.

At the same time, the body’s increasing diversity may make it even harder for BRICS+ to formulate, adopt, and pursue unified policy positions, including within the framework of the G20. To date, BRICS has been more effective at signaling what it is against—namely, continued Western domination of the architecture of global governance—than what it stands for. Developing a coherent, positive agenda for reforming world order and advancing international cooperation is likely to become even harder as the coalition adds more countries with very different political institutions, economic models, cultural systems, and national interests. The initial composition of BRICS+ will also complicate its aspirations to speak for the Global South, further blunting its impact on global order.

Comparing Minilateral Groups

A recurrent theme of BRICS summits and communiqués is the group’s purported role as the voice of the Global Majority—that is, the large proportion of the world’s population that inhabits the postcolonial world and whose countries have historically lacked agency and voice in global decisionmaking. This is a theme that the Kremlin has repeatedly emphasized during Russia’s 2024 BRICS presidency.

This claim should be viewed with skepticism. At the end of the day, individual BRICS+ governments will represent their own national communities and pursue their own sovereign interests in international forums. These preferences may or may not align with those of low- and middle-income countries that participate in the Group of 77 (G77) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which boast 134 and 120 members, respectively. The initial BRICS+ expansion includes one lower-income country (Ethiopia) and two lower-middle-income countries (Egypt and Iran), but it also includes two wealthy nations (Saudi Arabia and the UAE). Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as Iran and Russia, are also major producers and exporters of oil and gas, whereas the vast majority of nations in the Global South (as well as China and India) are net importers, a fact likely to place them at odds over the clean energy transition, among other topics. When it comes to representing the needs and interests of the world’s poorest and least-powerful nations, there is no substitute for the UN General Assembly, where all of those countries have an equal vote.

More generally, the five original BRICS nations—with the partial exception of South Africa—differ from the vast majority of developing nations in enjoying or aspiring to major power status. China boasts the world’s largest economy, Russia is a nuclear superpower, India is the world’s the most populous country, and Brazil is a regional hegemon with global aspirations. All are significant geopolitical as well as economic actors and are competing for influence and markets across the Global South, including in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Such intra-BRICS rivalries will only increase with the admission of the geopolitical and ideological rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, which—notwithstanding China’s efforts to foster their rapprochement—remain bitter foes. (See table 1 for a comparison of memberships of BRICS+, the G20, the G7, the G77, and the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development.)

How might an additional expansion of BRICS+ affect its role and functioning? According to Putin, thirty-four countries have expressed an interest to join the club, “in one form or another.” Some two dozen countries have reportedly applied for membership, among them Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Thailand, Venezuela, and Vietnam. More may be waiting in the wings, like Indonesia, which applied and then withdrew its application a decade ago. The most recent applicant is Türkiye, a member of NATO—albeit one that seeks to keep its options open. The group, in other words, seems destined to expand.
While there can be strength in numbers, as the saying goes, there are also vulnerabilities. The potential admission of dozens of diverse countries will inevitably complicate consensus-building and decisionmaking, reproducing dysfunction—and duplicating many of the functions—of encompassing multilateral groupings like the NAM or the G77. This risk is magnified by the failure of the original BRICS members to clarify their strategy toward expansion. The bloc has not specified any criteria for admission, nor has it required new entrants to adhere to any core principles or common program. In the absence of a detailed, positive agenda for global institutional reform to guide collective action, BRICS+ risks further diluting its already minimal coherence and seeing itself riven by internal enmities (India and Pakistan come to mind) or succumbing to factional rivalries. Rather than a coherent body with bonds of solidarity, an ever-expanding BRICS could produce bric-a-brac—a collection of miscellaneous objects of uncertain value. In the immediate term, China will continue to dominate the bloc, reinforcing the existing hub-and-spoke arrangement.

Impact on the G20

Among the biggest uncertainties is what impact the BRICS+ will have on the role and functioning of the G20, which will hold its own summit in Rio de Janeiro on November 18–19 under this year’s chair, Brazil. Since the G20’s elevation to the leader level in 2008, one of its ostensible comparative advantages has been that it provide a setting for flexible coalitions of consensus to emerge that transcend rigid blocs. That is, it provides a possible framework for members to build bridges and advance cooperation on shared interests, regardless of differences of regime type or tensions over other matters. Realizing this potential, however, depends on the willingness of G20 member states to compartmentalize and cooperate on certain shared challenges while continuing to compete, often fiercely, in other domains. Striking this balance has become increasingly difficult in recent years, as evinced by the acrimonious G20 diplomacy during and after the coronavirus pandemic and, more recently, in response to fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza. Rather than a platform for collective action, the forum has too often become a setting for East-West and North-South recriminations.

The expansion of BRICS certainly has the potential to exacerbate these dynamics, by splitting the G20 into opposed G7 and BRICS+ factions. Since 2000, the G7’s share of global GDP, as measured by purchasing power parity, has declined from 43 to 30 percent, while that of the five original BRICS countries has increased from just over 21 percent to nearly 35. When nominal dollar figures are used, the G7 continues to hold a significant edge, 43 to 27.7 percent, but the gap is shrinking. Presuming that Türkiye joins Saudi Arabia in BRICS membership, BRICS+ will, like the G7, boast seven members in the G20—with the possibility that Indonesia could someday join them.
The pivotal question is whether the BRICS+ members of the G20 will seek (or be able) to translate this heft into unified economic and geopolitical positions within the latter body. One could imagine them treating BRICS+ as a prenegotiation forum in which to reach common (and potentially rigid) stances that they then import to the G20—reinforcing the temptation of the G7 to do likewise. Although plausible, this scenario seems unlikely. Putting aside China and Russia, the four current BRICS+ members of the G20—India, Brazil, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia—have a fundamental interest in keeping their strategic options and alignments open. Membership in both clubs allows them to play an inside and an outside game—to rally a counterhegemonic coalition in BRICS+, while adopting a more pragmatic, mixed strategy within the G20, in which they can press for global governance reform but also build bridges across East-West and North-South divides.
Nations, like people, are intersectional. Emerging powers have multiple, overlapping identities that influence their orientations, and they are capable of playing more than one game, as well as code-switching, in different settings. Consider Brazil, a dynamic if fragile democracy. Under the leadership of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, it expresses solidarity with the Global Majority, rails against the inequities of the Bretton Woods institutions, and insists that it should not need to choose between East and West. At the same time, it cultivates friendly relations with the United States and is an accession candidate to the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, the club of wealthy market democracies. Like Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa each have complicated identities and preferences of their own—and the same is true of other G20 nations that are not (yet) members of BRICS+, including Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico, South Korea, and Türkiye.
Middle powers have a critical role to play in ensuring that the G20 remains a setting in which international cooperation is possible, notwithstanding deepening East-West divides. This year marks the third of four consecutive years in which a country from the Global South—Brazil, succeeding Indonesia and India and preceding South Africa—holds the rotating chair of the G20. All four countries seek to advance developing world priorities and global governance reform through constructive and inclusive multilateral diplomacy, and they have no interest in encouraging any further global fragmentation or getting caught in the cross fire of geopolitical competition. This genuine commitment to dialogue provides an opening for Western countries— including the United States, which will once again chair the G20 process in 2026.

Conclusion

The rise of BRICS+ brings to mind an oft-cited quotation from Antonio Gramsci: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born.” What that future world looks like depends in part on the choices that policymakers make today. For the U.S. and other Western governments, BRICS+ is a reminder of the dangers of ignoring the legitimate demands of countries and peoples around the world for greater agency, influence, and power in the structures of global governance that shape their fate. Dismissing or resisting these pressures, rather than engaging and, where appropriate, accommodating them, will only harden global divisions, embolden authoritarians, and provide openings for malicious actors. (It is worth remembering, in this regard, the remainder of Gramsci’s quotation: “Now is the time of monsters.”)

A more farsighted Western response would be to treat the creation of BRICS+ as a spur and an opportunity to engage important emerging powers—including countries like Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Vietnam, which have no desire to be vassals to China—to build a more inclusive global order. Such a strategy, accompanied by a willingness to make tangible policy shifts, share the privileges of power, and provide real material benefits, would begin to defang sweeping critiques of the existing order and increase the stakes of rising powers in a common, reformed system that remains anchored in the UN Charter and international law. President Joe Biden’s administration has a new, forward-leaning position on UN Security Council reform that is one step in this direction, but it is not nearly enough. To dissuade emerging and middle powers in the Global South from stampeding to alternative BRICS+ institutions, or even casting their lot with China and Russia, the West must demonstrate to these countries that it welcomes (rather than seeks to block) the emergence of a more multipolar world, that it will not press them to make unrealistic choices about their strategic alignment, and that it is willing to negotiate openly on the rules of the road that will govern the future world order.

Global GovernanceForeign Policy
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

Turkey
Source: neweasterneurope.eu

Nearly two decades after its establishment, the multilateral organization remains a mere talking shop with no coherent agenda or mission statement.

October 11, 2024 - Saahil Menon -  Articles and Commentary

Ahead of the upcoming BRICS summit in Russia. Photo: Photo: Ilya lyubchenko / Shutterstock
In a seminal research paper from 2001, the then Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jim O’Neill lumped together four standout emerging markets – namely Brazil, Russia, India and China. He believed they were punching well below their weight at the time and warranted greater representation in the international arena. Yekaterinburg played host to the inaugural 2009 BRICS summit, with the heads of state of all existing members in attendance. South Africa was admitted to the intergovernmental bloc a year later, notwithstanding bleak growth prospects that prompted Moody’s to downgrade its debt outlook from stable to negative in 2011.

The mind behind the BRICS idea began to suspect that the abstract marketing concept he came up with for “adventurous investors” was becoming something of a vanity project. During an event held by ETF Stream in London last summer, O’Neill even confessed that BRICS was never meant to be a “political club” and questioned “what fruitful purpose it serves” following the haphazard expansion wave on January 1st 2024. Bringing Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia into the fold only reaffirmed his assertion that the informal alliance was light on substance and heavy on symbolism, while lacking any real raison d’être.

Argentina’s “anarcho-capitalist” President Javier Milei opted out of this expanding BRICS shortly after assuming power in December 2023, citing his unwillingness to “ally with communists” as grounds for doing so. Meanwhile, fellow invitee Saudi Arabia has yet to confirm whether or not it will formally join the Russia-led association. Besides biding their time in anticipation of the US elections this November, the House of Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MbS) in particular appreciate that tethering the kingdom’s post-oil future to Greater Eurasia as opposed to the Group of Seven (G7) economies is a losing proposition.

Should Republican nominee Donald Trump return to the Oval Office for a second term, Riyadh will likely mirror Buenos Aires in scrapping BRICS membership altogether. Though he has long been accused of having a soft spot for Russia, Trump is at odds with Putin’s ongoing quest to undermine the petrodollar. Amid recently released footage directly implicating the Saudi intelligence operative Omar Al Bayoumi in the planning and execution of 9/11, the Trump administration could agree to suppress any negative publicity that risks torpedoing MbS’s Vision 2030 project in return for Saudi Arabia pivoting away from the orbit of Moscow and Beijing.

The 45th American president went out of his way to provide cover for the conservative sheikhdom’s de facto ruler in the aftermath of the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Affinity Partners, a hedge fund founded by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner after leaving the White House, received a two billion US dollar windfall from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) as a token of gratitude for burying the Khashoggi incident and limiting the reputational damage wrought upon MbS. It is also worth recalling that Kushner helped broker the historic 2020 Abraham Accords and now has his sights set on Saudi-Israel normalization.

That said, the October 7th massacre prevented both Middle Eastern states from reaching a near-term peace deal. If anything, Putin ended up milking the ensuing Gaza conflict and feigning sympathy for the Palestinian cause to advance his idea of multipolarity and win over the Global South. BRICS has admittedly generated interest from key players within the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) like Turkey, Malaysia and Algeria by virtue of its pro-Hamas stance. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met his GCC counterparts in Riyadh last week to further consolidate pan-Arab support for the “new world order”.

Among the reasons why BRICS has, nonetheless, failed to position itself as a credible counterweight to the G7 or OECD is acute internal rivalries. This is especially true regarding China and India. Ever since the Galwan Valley border clash four years ago that left 20 Indian soldiers dead, diplomatic ties between the two Asian giants have remained at rock bottom. India has steered clear of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), refused to resume direct flights to China, and played an increasingly active role alongside the US, Japan and Australia in the Quad – a strategic security coalition aimed at containing Beijing’s influence across the Indo-Pacific region.

Another less talked about territorial dispute BRICS has managed to import concerns Iran and the UAE. Despite repeatedly lobbying Russia and China to condemn the Islamic Republic’s alleged annexation of the three Persian Gulf islands of Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb, the Emiratis are effectively underwriting their own position given Dubai’s notorious reputation as the go-to offshore haven for IRGC-linked officials to launder and stash away their ill-gotten gains. To make matters worse, the Kremlin has invited arch foes Armenia and Azerbaijan to the upcoming BRICS forum in Kazan that will take place next month.

When it comes to potential enlargement, however, Russia – which currently chairs BRICS – appears to have engaged in doublespeak. On the one hand, Putin continues to boast about the fact that 34 countries are vying for accession and hint at the absence of any hard and fast criterion that must be fulfilled to make the cut. At the same time, Lavrov recently ruled out the intake of any additional members in order to first “process new arrivals”. Although the “de-dollarization” agenda is bound to feature prominently in Kazan, prospects for launching an alternative payment mechanism and common currency are still riddled with challenges.

For starters, most BRICS participants are not as gung-ho about disrupting the status quo as the Russians, Chinese and Iranians. Efforts to bypass SWIFT and entertain non-dollar cross-border transactions at scale could expose nations on cordial terms with the West – such as India, Brazil and South Africa – to secondary sanctions. There have already been cases of punitive measures imposed on third-country banks that facilitate financial flows to and from Russia. Moreover, most funding and lending administered by the New Development Bank (NDB) is done in US dollars, with borrowing in local currencies amounting to less than 20 per cent.

As far as Putin is concerned, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) are the new Nord Stream I and II. Conducting strikes deep inside Russia is arguably Ukraine’s best bet to thwart the ex-KGB agent’s grand plans for a global redistribution of power and ensure that he is forced to show up at the negotiating table with a weak hand. Bringing the war home to Russia will not only render the federation “uninvestable” and off-limits to foreign dignitaries, but eventually encourage its “fence-sitting” allies to second-guess their commitment to an anti-western movement facing a major legitimacy crisis.

As audacious and timely as the Kursk incursion was, Putin’s tepid response to one of his supposed red lines served as a sobering reminder of how little he cares about the lives of non-Muscovites. The going rate for conscripts from Moscow has been set at 22,000 US dollars a head. Clearly, there is no alternative to targeting the aggressor’s seat of power if those who count are to feel the ramifications of the war and turn on their commander-in-chief. Pursuing this course of action will also lead to a loss of face for the Russian dictator in the eyes of developing nations, insulating them from the cancerous spread of Russkiy Mir.

Saahil Menon is an independent wealth advisor based in Dubai with an academic background in business, economics and finance.

Russia
Source: russiancouncil.ru

On the sidelines of the economic forum in Vlapostok on September 4, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin made it clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Belgrade is a strategic partner and "ally of Russia".

Putin greeted his Serbian colleague Aleksandar Vučić, whom he invited to attend the upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan.(1)

This Slavic solidarity, however, was not approved by the European Union. The next day, EU foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano said that maintaining or even intensifying ties with Russia at the time of its illegal aggression against the Ukrainian people is not in line with EU values.

Vulin's visit to Russia may have been even more difficult for the EU to accept because recently there have been signs that Serbia is getting closer to the European bloc.

At the end of August, Serbia signed an agreement with France to replace old Russian MiGs with new French Rafale jets. It previously concluded an agreement with the EU on the exploitation of lithium for the production of batteries for electric cars.

However, conflicting messages are common for Serbia under Vučić, who during his 12 years in power led a multi-vector foreign policy, balancing relations with the West, Russia and China.

However, those who hope that the purchase of the Rafale and the lithium business is a sign of his wholehearted turn to the West are wrong.

This was clear when Vucic said at a press conference with the French president on August 29: "I know that Emmanuel (Macron) would like me to impose sanctions on Russia. But we did not do that and we are not ashamed of our decision." And here we come to the essence of Vucic's policy, he wants to lead the policy of Tito's Yugoslavia, that is, the policy of neutrality.

Serbian officials still like to say that Serbia is the "East of the West" and the "West of the East". Vučić's balancing approach has strong precedent in the politics of longtime Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, who was one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, an alliance of states that maintained a neutral position between the Western and Soviet blocs.

Serbia, however, is not as strong as Yugoslavia once was - and this means that Vučić's policy requires greater flexibility and constant adjustment.

Vučić is adept at making arrangements with Serbia's international partners, making sure to give something to all interested parties, but, most importantly, not giving everything to anyone.

In this regard, the EU is the largest investor in Serbia, including the one and a half billion euros that the European Union recently earmarked for Serbia.

However, Russia controls the Oil Industry of Serbia (NIS), and China, through the Zijin Mining Group, owns 63 percent of RTB Bor, the largest mining company in the country.

Vučić also opened Serbia to the Arab world. The United Arab Emirates invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the Belgrade on Water project, plus in the Serbian military industry.

The USA was not left out either. In May, Serbia made an agreement with Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, to build a commercial and residential complex on the ruins of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense in the center of Belgrade, which was destroyed during the 1999 NATO campaign led by the United States.
With the presidential elections in the USA in November, many observers interpreted this agreement with Kushner as preparation of the authorities in Serbia for a possible return of Trump to the White House.

However, in a recent interview with the British Financial Times, Vučić insisted that it was purely a "business venture".

As always, he tries to position himself well between the different sides. "My friend (Hungarian Prime Minister) Viktor (Orbán) is 100 percent on Trump's side," Vučić told the Financial Times.

"My friends from Brussels are 100 percent on Biden's (Joe) side. I'm not. I'm on the Serbian side and I'm waiting for the results," said Vučić.

He took a similar approach to Ukraine, trying to persify risks. Although it refuses to support Western sanctions against Russia, Serbia at the same time provides grenades to Ukraine through third countries worth 800 million euros from 2022, or one third of the total European contingent.

Russians and Serbs are historically and spiritually close, and Serbia diplomatically relies on Russia, for example, in blocking Kosovo's admission to the UN.

Nevertheless, Vučić tries to keep his distance from Russia in certain situations.

Vučić reservedly responded to Putin's invitation to join the BRICS summit in Russia in October, saying that Serbia will have important guests during that period. However, a few days later he moderated his answer, saying that he will make a decision on going to the summit on October 10 or 15 because he does not want to refuse or accept anything.

"There is no doubt that it is an important call, as we have previously scheduled important visits," said Vučić.

At that time, Serbia is expecting the visit of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Speaking at the Globsec forum in Prague on August 31, Vučić dismissed the idea that Belgrade is the Kremlin's "Trojan horse", saying he had not had personal contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin for two and a half years.

It should be borne in mind that almost 70 percent of Serbia's trade goes to the European Union, and the economy is the main reason why Vucic often complies with the demands of the West.
That is why Vucic tries to lead a policy of sitting on four chairs. And that means cooperation with Brussels, Moscow, Washington and Beijing. That is why attentive observers of the situation in Serbia can notice that at one point in Serbia you have the Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting, then a few days later the First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba arrive. Then Vučić goes to the Russian Cultural Center in Belgrade and gives a patriotic speech. And then, two days later, he talks with the EU about economic growth plans.

It is important to point out that at the end of last year, Vucic spoke about BRICS during the highly watched Serbian TV show "Cirilica".

There Vučić stated that Serbia needs a European path, and that joining the BRICS is currently not an option, no matter how tempting it sounds to Serbian people. Talking about the conversation he had with the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed, during his stay in Belgrade, during which the first man of that Gulf country revealed to him that he plans to join the BRICS . Vučić stated that bin Zayed asked him how old his younger son was and what kind of environment he would like to live in. "In twenty years, when your little son is twenty-six, think about where you want him to live." "Do you want him to live in Europe, which will then account for seven to eight percent of the world's GDP, or to live in some new organization that will have 40 or 50 percent of the world's GDP," said Vučić. He added that he explained to bin Zayed that BRICS is also an attractive option for people in Serbia. Vučić explained that BRICS, unlike the EU, does not have common bodies, institutions, or currency, and does not have the same degree of unity as the EU. "I listened to him for an hour after that." He approached it with great enthusiasm and extraordinary ambition. Knowing how wise, serious, dedicated, hardworking he is and knowing that he has the best intelligence in the world, I have been thinking about it every day since then, but at this moment Serbia needs a European path, and the path to BRICS is not an option for us at the moment, I say that openly", pointed out Vučić.(2)

From all the above its clear that although Vucic said that he will decide in mid-October whether he will travel to Kazan for the BRICS forum, there are little chances that he will go to the forum because he does not want to resent the West. However, the delegation of Serbia will certainly be present, probably headed by Aleksandar Vulin.

On the other hand, Republic of Srpska and its president Milorad Dodik lead an openly pro-Russian policy. President Dodik has already announced that he will come to the BRICS forum in Kazan. He discussed this with the Russian ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Igor Kalabuhov. During the meeting, the determination to continue and deepen cooperation between the Republic of Srpska and Russia for the sake of political, economic and economic growth and prosperity was highlighted, the Cabinet of the President of the Republic announced.

During the meeting, Ambassador Kalabukhov presented Dodik with letters of support from the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov and Dmitry Medvedev.

Expressing gratitude for the letters of support, the President of Srpska emphasized that Republika Srpska is a reliable partner for the Russian Federation.

• https://www.klix.ba/vijesti/regija/putin-pozvao-vucica-na-samit-brics-a-u-rusiju-srbijanski-predsjednik-ga-odbio/240905060
• https://www.politika.rs/sr/clanak/589188/Vucic-Svakog-dana-razmisljam-o-BRIKS-u

Russia
Source: russiancouncil.ru

The 2024 expansion is the most important milestone, after which BRICS found itself at a fork in the road. It will either preserve and strengthen the quality of cooperation amid the new composition and turn into a genuine institute of global governance and pe into the formation of a more just world order, or it will become a loose and non-decision-making discussion club, participation in which is prestigious, but does not oblige its members to make any obligations or compromises, which are necessary for genuine multilateralism, Dmitry Suslov writes.

The expansion that took place on January 1, 2024 following the summit in Johannesburg became the most important event in the 15-year history of BRICS, an unquestionable confirmation of its success and the strengthening of its authority and attractiveness in the world, as well as a very significant indicator of a qualitative change in the international environment.

It signified the acceleration of the rate at which multipolarity was taking shape, the reduction of the global influence of the West, and the desire of an increasing number of countries throughout the world to strengthen their sovereignty and to participate more in global governance.

It is no coincidence that the expansion of BRICS occurred at the very moment when, in an attempt to maintain its hegemony, the United States and its allies launched a simultaneous confrontation against Russia, China and Iran and began to vigorously form and expand anti-Russian, anti-Chinese and anti-Iranian blocs, forcing countries to choose if they are with the West or against it. Washington threatened almost everyone with secondary sanctions, thereby violating the sovereign right of states to build relations with each other within the framework of international law. But the effect of this pressure was the opposite. A phenomenon appeared that Russia calls the “World Majority.” This is not synonymous with the Global South. For example, Russia does not belong to the latter and has never belonged to it. The World Majority is comprised of countries that are not against the West, but against the bloc approach, unilateral sanctions, the need to make an “either-or” choice, and for a multipolar world, respect for civilisational persity, and for the right to determine their own development model. It is precisely these countries that have shown a desire to join BRICS, and the association itself, consisting of 10 members, has become the vanguard of the World Majority.

At the same time, doubling the membership is a big challenge for any multilateral entity. Countries with very different national interests and foreign policy orientations have joined BRICS. Now, within BRICS, there are both official opponents of the United States (Russia, Iran) and “major non-NATO allies?” (Egypt, UAE). Often, such large-scale expansions lead to a decrease in the quality of interaction – precisely because of the increasing persity of interests of the member countries. This is especially true for structures in which there is no hegemon that is able to push through a particular decision, as is the case in groups such as NATO or the G7.

BRICS – and this is its most important distinguishing feature – is precisely an association without a hegemon.

In addition, there are many disagreements between the BRICS countries. They concern, firstly, relations with the West: some want to strengthen relations with these countries, counting on their help with economic development and security; others have already gone through this and no longer have such illusions. Secondly, there are disagreements concerning the speed of the formation of a new system of global economic governance. Thus, not everyone supports the rapid creation of a common BRICS currency or even a new settlement mechanism independent of the dollar; not everyone supports rapid de-dollarisation. The reason is the same – different relations with the West. The West, of course, is trying in every possible way to solidify these disagreements. Thirdly, bilateral relations between the BRICS countries are far from always warm and partnership-like. China – India and Iran – Saudi Arabia are the most striking examples.

Thus, the expansion that took place is the most important milestone, after which BRICS found itself at a fork in the road. It will either preserve and strengthen the quality of cooperation amid the new composition and turn into a genuine institute of global governance and pe into the formation of a more just world order, or it will become a loose and non-decision-making discussion club, participation in which is prestigious, but does not oblige its members to make any obligations or compromises, which are necessary for genuine multilateralism. In order to follow the first path, which seems more preferable, based on Russian interests, BRICS should develop in accordance with three priorities:

• First, it is necessary to strengthen the focus on issues of global governance and, above all, the formation of an ecosystem of financial and economic relations independent from the West. It is necessary to strengthen the New Development Bank and accelerate the creation of a settlement mechanism independent of the dollar in trade between the countries of the association, gradually connecting an increasing number of partner countries to it. At the same time, the BRICS countries should not only discuss and support, but also make decisions and ensure their implementation. The emergence of such a mechanism will sharply weaken the effectiveness of the Western sanctions club and will serve as an important contribution to the formation of a more equitable world economic order.
• Second, BRICS should increase internal flexibility in terms of the agenda and cooperation projects, developing multi-speed cooperation on a wide variety of “flexible coalitions”. This, in turn, precludes the transformation of BRICS into a classic international organisation with a permanent secretariat.
• Third, it is advisable to temporarily reduce the pace of expansion, without abandoning it in principle, and focus in the next year or two on strengthening relations with like-minded countries.

Why will focusing on the issues of global governance allow BRICS to overcome emerging challenges and strengthen unification amid current global conditions (the emergence of the “World Majority” on the one hand, and the bloc confrontation policy of the U.S. and the West, on the other)?

First, despite the increased civilisational and foreign policy persity and even interstate contradictions, all BRICS countries are like-minded on issues of world order and global governance. They all stand for sovereignty, sovereign equality of states, multipolarity, against the hegemony of the US dollar in global finance and the hegemony of the West in global economic governance, for increasing the role of the Global South in regulatory institutions, for the central role of the UN in world affairs and the reform of the Security Council, and so on. The differences between them regarding relations with the West and the speed of formation of a new system of global governance do not cancel out this common denominator. Moreover, the expansion did not change the overall balance within BRICS between countries advocating a faster transition to the new system and countries advocating a slower transition.

Second, the expansion made BRICS even more global. It is no longer a club of several of the largest developing economies. It is the most authoritative and representative association of the World Majority, a defender of the interests of developing countries in global governance.

Third, strengthening the BRICS focus on global governance is also in demand because a vacuum has formed in this area. Western unilateral sanctions, as well as trade and technological restrictions undermine global development. The dollar has become an instrument of dictatorship and blackmail. The G20 is paralysed due to Western attempts to politicise its agenda. It turns out that apart from BRICS, there are currently simply no instruments of global governance that favour developing countries.

Fourth, it is the focus on global issues that allows the BRICS countries to cooperate despite their regional rivalry. Despite often being geopolitical rivals in their regions, the BRICS countries are like-minded with respect to global issues.

Of course, it is important not to try to turn BRICS into an anti-Western alliance. First, this will not work due to the membership of countries in BRICS that value partnership with the West. Second, this will weaken the authority of BRICS in the eyes of the World Majority, whose countries do not want to make a choice and join antagonistic blocs. Third, this will further weaken global governance, while the mission of BRICS is to strengthen it.

Therefore, BRICS needs to form a new system of global governance that is not against the West, but without the West.

The second priority in the development of BRICS to ensure its success after expansion is to strengthen internal flexibility and develop multi-speed cooperation within the framework of “flexible coalitions”. This is what seems to be able to solve the problem when inpidual countries of the association advocate different speeds of cooperation on various issues, including moving towards a new system of trade settlements and currency and financial relations in general, independently of the dollar and Western institutions. The multi-speed model will allow different “advanced” groups to move forward only on those issues in which there is interest, without the obligatory extension of this more advanced cooperation to all BRICS members at once. Of course, other BRICS countries should not be against such a selective cooperation. There can be many such coalitions of interests on a variety of issues with a variety of compositions. Such flexibility rules out the transformation of BRICS into a classic international organisation with a permanent secretariat. These, as a rule, seek to impose uniform rules, standards and deep cooperation on all participants. Moreover, international bureaucracy often tries to start out technical and become more political. It begins to lay claims to leadership, and countries will be forced not to determine the agenda themselves through equal dialogue, but to engage in discussions with the bureaucracy, often fighting it. The above, however, does not negate the expediency of creating a “virtual” BRICS secretariat – a database of all projects and decisions of the association.

Finally, the third priority concerns the balance between openness and efficiency. In order to both increase its attractiveness and influence in the eyes of the World Majority and maintain its viability, BRICS should, without abandoning further expansion, temporarily reduce its pace. The main priority for the short term in this area is the full integration of new members and the creation of a format of “permanent BRICS partners”. This format will allow for the desire of many countries to become closer to BRICS to be taken into account without making BRICS limitless. Unlike the traditional BRICS+, which also needs to be preserved, the “partner countries” can be a permanent group of countries, some of which can eventually become full members. That is, this format can be considered as an “association”. This group can include both countries that have already declared their desire to join BRICS, but have not yet received an invitation, and countries that have not yet declared their desire to join, but can be useful to BRICS in implementing its mission to form more equitable global governance. Partner countries should be involved in many BRICS processes and projects, including at the level of experts, business and civil society, but without decision-making rights.

BRICS should remain the vanguard of the World Majority, and not the majority itself. It should not become an analogue of the UN General Assembly. A certain exclusivity while maintaining openness is necessary. BRICS members should not just be countries that share its basic principles of sovereign equality, a multipolar world order and fairer global governance, but also countries that can make an important contribution to the implementation of this mission – that is, they should be important and influential states, leaders in their respective fields and regions.

Switzerland
Source: www.gisreportsonline.com

The 2024 BRICS summit in Russia will unfold amid global tensions, highlighting South Africa’s complex position within the alliance.

In a nutshell

• Tensions rise as the 2024 BRICS summit in Russia approaches
• South Africa faces scrutiny over its ties with authoritarian members
• Coalition government dynamics may reshape South Africa’s BRICS stance

The 2024 BRICS summit, to be held in Kazan, Russia, from October 22-24, will take place amid an increasingly tense geopolitical atmosphere. The crises in the Middle East and Ukraine are likely to dominate the agenda, as member states explore the future of the alliance and their nations’ roles within it. During the 2023 BRICS summit, the original members from which the axis takes its name (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) welcomed new members into the fold: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.

South Africa’s controversial bedfellows

Some in the international community have expressed mixed reactions to South Africa’s position within BRICS. Concerns are rife about the bilateral relations South Africa has built with authoritarian BRICS members such as Russia, China and now Iran.

Since Pretoria failed to condemn Moscow following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, South Africa’s relationship with Russia has come under scrutiny. Mr. Ramaphosa’s administration has been criticized by American diplomats as well as South African civil society for its close ties with Russia, but has still maintained its “non-aligned” posture. In defiance of the ANC’s position toward the Kremlin, and before becoming its coalition partner, the leader of the main opposition party in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance (DA), undertook a fact-finding trip to Kiev, demonstrating solidarity with the people of Ukraine.    

In the leadup to the 2023 summit, the African National Congress (ANC)-led administration under President Cyril Ramaphosa reiterated its loyalty to the BRICS alliance by again refusing to condemn Russia. He went so far as to question the basis of the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s order to arrest Russian leader Vladimir Putin on South African soil if he attended the summit. South Africa’s diplomats controversially claimed that the ICC’s order interfered with South Africa’s sovereignty, and arresting him would be a “declaration of war.” Under pressure from civil society organizations, the press and opposition parties, President Ramaphosa eventually withdrew Mr. Putin’s invitation to attend the summit.

South Africa showcases its clout with BRICS expansion

During the 2023 summit, South Africa emerged not as a junior partner surrounded by global giants in the expanding BRICS club, but as a major player. Pretoria used its role as host of the summit to make it clear that the country is willing to defy Western powers, and will openly maintain close ties with Russia even amid Western sanctions against the country.

The 2023 summit was also significant because gates were opened for additional members. Iran’s presence raised questions about the direction of alliance, as it implied its goal may have moved beyond building an alternative and representative global trade system – toward challenging United States foreign policy. The new member states are not known for their open competitive democratic systems, but this seems not to have concerned the ANC-led government. President Ramaphosa lauded the inclusion of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Ethiopia in the bloc as “a new chapter” in building a fairer world.

Recent global tensions have further distanced South Africa from Western powers. Pretoria brought Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges that the country might be involved in acts of genocide in Gaza. This move was in direct defiance of the U.S., who saw the court route as unfavorable toward attaining lasting peace in the region. South Africa’s official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, also opposed the government’s stance on Israel, which they saw as hostile and condoning the militant Hamas.

Domestic pressure creates uncertainty about BRICS summit

The ANC entered South Africa’s recent election, held on May 29, carrying this baggage. Yet, instead of openly engaging with different stakeholders on geopolitical issues, the ruling party was resolute and uncompromising in defying what it saw as bullying by Western powers and the unfounded sewing of discord by local civil society organizations and opposition parties. The election resulted in the ANC losing its majority and being forced to join with the opposition Democratic Alliance as a coalition partner, as well as other small opposition parties.

The 2024 BRICS+ summit will be the first since the ANC lost full control. As a senior partner holding the coalition government together, the Democratic Alliance will demand more accountability from the ANC on contentious issues such as BRICS’s expansion to include Iran. While the ANC retains key and influential portfolios like foreign relations and defense, the DA’s West-leaning policy outlook will be difficult to reconcile with the direction the ANC seems to want to lead BRICS.

Pretoria’s decisions will now bear the signature of more than one political party. This signals a new era in foreign policy. The upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan will witness a different South Africa.
ScenariosLikely: More pressure on the ANC to lean West

As far as the ANC-led government is concerned, there will be some continuity of South Africa’s foreign relations posture. However, details about which areas will remain the same and which will see changes, are scant. With its gambles on foreign relations issues leading up to the May elections, if it demonstrates continuity on foreign relations, the ANC will appear as if it is failing to heed the voice of the electorate. The people’s rejection of the party’s go-it-alone approach to policy is part of what resulted in the coalition government in the first place.

The DA will push for the ANC and other coalition partners to align more with Western stances on the war in Ukraine and other global disputes. South Africa’s positioning within the BRICS bloc and its relationships with other BRICS members will continue to be under the spotlight.

The 2024 BRICS+ summit will see a subdued South Africa, as the domestic political system settles after the seismic elections that will inevitably influence the country’s foreign policy. With multiple voices now engaging on foreign policy in the coalition government, it is unclear whether the tide will turn toward the West, or whether South Africa will continue to improvise as BRICS expands.
Possible: Other BRICS members use South Africa’s outlook as a blueprint

Other BRICS members will adopt a wait-and-see approach to assess how South Africa will forge ahead in the alliance, despite its political shifts and growing domestic pressure to include civil society voices in BRICS processes.

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USA
Source: www.bloomberg.com

Russia Pitches BRICS Payment System Aiming to Break US Dominance

• Report says settlements with tokens could save billions
• Russia has sought to lower reliance on dollar after sanctions

Russia is proposing changes to cross-border payments conducted among BRICS countries aimed at circumventing the global financial system, as the heavily penalized country seeks to sanctions-proof its own economy.

The alternatives include developing a network of commercial banks that can conduct such transactions in local currencies as well as establishing direct links between central banks, according to a report prepared by the Russian Finance Ministry, the Bank of Russia and Moscow-based consultancy Yakov & Partners.

The “multicurrency system” will need to “ring-fence its participants from any external pressures such as extraterritorial sanctions,” said the report, which also argued that US interests “are not always aligned with the interests of other participants” of the global financial network.

The plan also includes the creation of centers for mutual trade in commodities such as oil, natural gas, grain and gold.

The US and its allies imposed sweeping penalties on Russia after President Vladimir Putin ordered the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They froze Russia’s foreign assets and kicked major Russian lenders off the SWIFT financial messaging system. In response, Russia has sought to decrease its dependence on the dollar.

Still, other BRICS countries not facing the same complications from sanctions have continued to prioritize access to the dollar-based financial system. Globally, 58% of international payments, excluding those within the euro area, involve the greenback, while the dollar is used in 54% of foreign trade invoices as of 2022, according to the Brookings Institution.

The report was published as Putin prepares to host leaders for the annual BRICS summit, in Kazan from Oct. 22-24. The BRICS group comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa expanded in January to include Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt.

Among the proposals, Russia is pitching the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) or a new multinational platform to allow settlements with tokens.

“The key advantage of utilizing DLT settlement model is the elimination of the credit risk” accompanying the conventional banking set-up, the report said.

DLT could also reduce processing times and costs because correspondent entities and compliance checks will be absent, saving BRICS countries as much as $15 billion annually if half of all cross-border transfers used such transactions, the report’s authors argued.

USA
Source: www.reuters.com

MOSCOW, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Most finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the BRICS group of countries did not attend a high-level meeting in Moscow on Friday ahead of a BRICS summit later this month, sending more junior officials instead, official documents showed.

Finance ministers from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates and the head of Iran's central bank were present as Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov called for the creation of an alternative to the Western-dominated global financial system.

But finance ministers and bank chiefs from China, India and South Africa stayed away, sending deputies or more junior officials instead, a day after Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov accused the West of pressuring countries not to attend the BRICS summit.

BRICS, originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, and China, has expanded to include South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

The Moscow meeting is modeled on the Group of 20 schedule, where summits are preceded by meetings of top economic policy officials who outline proposals to be reviewed by leaders at the summit.

Russia, heavily sanctioned by the West over its war in Ukraine and cut off from international capital markets, is trying to woo BRICS partners with initiatives such as the creation of the BRICS Bridge international payment system.

"The creation of a cross-border payment initiative is our main task," Siluanov told the officials. Russia is also pushing for the creation of a BRICS clearing centre, a rating agency, a reinsurance company, and a commodities exchange.

She was not the only one in Rome to speak up for UNIFIL.

Siluanov has also proposed setting up a joint investment platform based on the group's New Development Bank, its only functioning financial institution. The platform will use a new digital form of transactions, he said, without elaborating.

TRANSACTION DELAYS

Russia has recently experienced delays in international transactions with its trading partners, including BRICS member countries, as banks in these countries fear punitive actions from Western regulators.

The payment problems have forced Russian companies to use barter deals and cryptocurrencies to facilitate payments.

China was represented in Moscow by Deputy Finance Minister Liao Min and Deputy Central Bank Governor Changneng Xuan, and India by Finance Ministry Secretary Ajay Seth.

The summit is scheduled for Oct. 22-24 in Kazan, capital of Russia's Tatarstan region.

President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, said nine of the 10 BRICS states would send their leaders, though Saudi Arabia would send its foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. The Saudi delegation was absent from the Friday meeting.

Russia
Source: minfin.gov.ru

The inaugural meeting of the BRICS informal dialogue platform for cooperation in the diamond industry was held on the 9th of October in Moscow in a hybrid format on the sidelines of finance ministers and central bank governors’ meeting under the Russian Federation’s BRICS Chairmanship. The meeting took place as a follow-up to the agreements reached at the events of the Russian BRICS Chairmanship, as well as thanks to the support of the initiative by the African Diamond Producers Association (ADPA).

During the meeting representatives of the industry and regulatory authorities from the BRICS countries, as well as invited participants from leading international industry organizations discussed potential areas for developing a regular dialogue in order to ensure the sustainable development of the diamond trade. Following the results of the meeting, the participants agreed on four main areas of work for the dialogue platform: creating added value in supply chains; promoting generic diamond marketing programs in the BRICS markets; ensuring common standards for responsible diamond mining and trade; exchanging best practices.

"The launch of the BRICS+ diamond dialogue platform with the participation of African diamond-mining countries will help strengthen trade and business relations between our countries, create new forms of cooperation and develop a single position of representatives of all segments of the "diamond pipeline" from mine to retail in the common interests of the stable development of the sector. It is important to emphasize that our cooperation is built on the principles of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme as the only universal mechanism for regulating the global trade in rough diamonds," said Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev.

Within a separate session, representatives of the BRICS countries also discussed the importance of creating unified quality standards and rules for trading precious minerals and metals in the BRICS markets. During this discussion the parties supported the need to increase the turnover of precious metals between the countries based on products’ unified quality standards and agreed to make this area of ​​work a separate track.

Summing up the meeting, the members of the association discussed plans for 2025 and a draft statement which was proposed to be reflected in the declaration of the BRICS summit in Kazan.

Russia
Source: mid.ru

Good afternoon,

We have completed our meetings as part of the 19th East Asia Summit. President of Russia Vladimir Putin instructed me to represent him at this event.

The discussions demonstrated that our Western colleagues, who are ASEAN partners, just like Russia, China and India – these Western colleagues have been seeking to undermine the multilateral economic and security architecture which has evolved over decades with ASEAN at its core and which has proven its relevance and effectiveness.

However, it is obvious today that the United States and its allies decided to draw the Asia-Pacific Region into NATO’s sphere of interests by creating all these narrow and exclusive US-led military and political associations. This includes the troika formed by the United States, Japan and South Korea. There is also the United States, Japan and the Philippines trio. For the Indo-Pacific, they created the Quad, which includes Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan. All this does nothing to promote collective efforts, while fragmenting this common space by dividing it into friends and foes.
We have highlighted that this Western policy may lead to the region’s militarisation, while also threatening stability and sustainable development in the Asian part of our shared continent.

Russia reaffirmed its unwavering support for ASEAN countries in their efforts to preserve peace and ensure equal cooperation with all ASEAN partners.

The West wants to make ASEAN its main partner. And the primary purpose of this partnership would be to oppose Russia’s and China’s interests. In terms of Russia’s relations with ASEAN, for more than three decades, we have been building our strategic cooperation with this association based on an independent agenda free from any momentary political considerations. Next year, we will be marking the 20th anniversary of the first Russia-ASEAN summit and the adoption of the Joint Declaration on Progressive and Comprehensive Partnership at it.

Instead of using the events held as part of the East Asia Summit for pursuing vested political interests, Russia opted for promoting initiatives in several domains, including pandemic response, people-to-people contacts, including tourism, and supporting volunteering. We offer practical avenues for working together which can benefit all the participants and advocate equal and mutually beneficial cooperation.

During this meeting, we tabled a proposal to work together on developing remote territories. This is an important topic for us, just as for many ASEAN countries.

During today’s meeting, we set forth and circulated our overall perspective regarding cultural and social connectivity, which has become especially relevant considering the spread of destructive ideologies and attempts to blur and eliminate the traditional values.

Quite a few ideas we heard from our ASEAN colleagues on reinforcing the regional architecture can be viewed as complementary with Russia’s well-known initiative to create an architecture of indivisible security and equitable development for Eurasia.

The Association hosted the Secretary-General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as its guest at the East Asia Summit for the third time. He put forward a positive proposal to promote closer contacts between the SCO and ASEAN in various spheres that are relevant for the countries involved. We could see that the SCO and ASEAN are natural partners not only in terms of their geography, but also considering the firm commitment by their member countries to the principles of sovereign and mutually beneficial cooperation while taking into account each other’s interests.

We welcomed the fact that several ASEAN countries want to forge closer ties with BRICS. Today, this structure acts as one of the cornerstones of a multipolar world order. In just a few days, Kazan will be hosting the BRICS Summit, which will be a major international event. Several ASEAN countries were invited to attend it, and they accepted these invitations.

We have no doubt that the approaches we develop within BRICS for dealing with various topical matters can also serve the participants in the East Asia summits, especially ASEAN member states.

Question: You have mentioned the interest of ASEAN countries in BRICS. Did any of the countries express their interest in joining BRICS here on the sidelines of the ASEAN events?

Sergey Lavrov: This subject was not raised at the plenary sessions.

As I said, a number of ASEAN countries have been invited to the BRICS Summit in Kazan on October 22-24. They accepted the invitations. So, you will see them all there.