The BRICS, an acronym that encompasses five large countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) with a significant weight in the global economy and which are perceived as a counterweight to the West, are celebrating from today until Thursday a summit of heads of state and government (number 15) in Johannesburg. On the agenda of the meeting, the debate on the selection criteria for new countries in the club, an issue that has highlighted the divergence of positions between the founders, their heterogeneity and contradictions.
The faces of Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, Cyril Ramaphosa and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be seen in the South African city. Vladimir Putin will not be there, to weigh on him an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the crimes in Ukraine. It is a risk that South Africa does not want to take (the law obliges it to arrest him) and it means great frustration for the Russian, who was the one who most clearly understood the role that the group could play.
BRICS is a concept created in 2001 by Jim O'Neill for the investment bank Goldman Sachs. The economist was trying to reflect the weight of what were then known as "emerging economies" in world growth. O'Neill selected the four countries (South Africa was added in a second document) for their economic potential and geographic dimension. He predicted that in the coming years, the greatest global growth would come from these economies and that, in a couple of decades, they were going to surpass the G7 (the Group of Seven Most Industrialized Countries). Many economists questioned O'Neill's paper. The idea was too innovative. But she was so transparent and anticipatory that she ended up winning.
But it is one thing to draft a document that can be used to guide investors and quite another for someone to give political meaning to the club. Vladimir Putin was the first to notice it. In 2009, he invited the rest of the members to a meeting in Yekaterinburg, where the group was established as such and formulated as an alternative to the West. It had been two years since Putin had delivered his famous speech against NATO and the hegemony of the United States at the Munich Security Conference. At the BRICS meeting he was looking for allies and he found them. China joined the idea because it increasingly thought in terms of a superpower. Lula da Silva, then in his second term, was an enthusiast of the idea. India and South Africa were more cautious. But the reality was that none of those present did not mind being part of a club that questioned the arrogance of the United States and its multilateral institutions.
Since that day, the BRICS have not behaved uniformly. The club is equivalent to 40% of the world's population and a quarter of its production. In economic matters it was always clear that China was the heavyweight of the group. India wasn't doing badly either, but the two countries distrusted each other. Russia was a petrostate, with an economy periodically shaken by crude oil prices on international markets. And Brazil, and especially South Africa, entered a phase of slow growth.
The war in Ukraine ended up accentuating these nuances. The invasion of a neighboring country contradicted the proclamations of sovereignty with those that adorned the club's speeches. And at the same time, the BRICS became essential if Russia wanted to avoid international sanctions (China and India have absorbed a lot of Russian oil during the conflict).
Today, one of the goals of the BRICS is to escape the tyranny of the dollar and its institutions. Create a common currency capable of competing with the greenback. Promote cooperation and exchange with your own currencies. But it is one thing to formulate it and another very different (and very difficult) thing is to create an infrastructure to achieve it. There will be little talk of a common currency at this summit. It is far from being a reality. Instead, the BRICS Bank (the New Development Bank) will be discussed, which is too slow for everyone's liking.
The interest in belonging to the BRICS has exceeded the expectations of the founders. There is talk of up to twenty-two candidate countries to join the club. From powerful countries tired of the one-way friendship with the United States (Saudi Arabia) to internationally isolated pariahs (Iran and Venezuela). From G-20 members who want to open up to new markets (Indonesia) to powers that want visibility (Nigeria). They are all looking for an area of economic cooperation that allows them to avoid the US and its multilateral institutions. Give them more financial support. They all have some grievance with the first power and European allies and the pandemic has only increased that feeling. All are asking for reforms, whether at the WTO or the UN. But all these expectations can be disappointed. Because it is precisely this interest in joining the club that brings out the differences within it.
China is the most enthusiastic country in opening the club. It needs maximum support in its global struggle with the United States. It is also looking for new markets for faltering exports and its cooperation policy fits this purpose. Russia also wants to open the club. It is in his narrative of war against the West that he gets the most support. Brazil and South Africa are not clear about changing a status that makes them unique in their respective continents. Lula da Silva has invited Argentina to join the club (due to his personal friendship with Alberto Fernández), but his diplomacy is smart enough not to support a strictly anti-Western policy. The BRICS give South Africa a prominent role in a turbulent continent. India, finally, is the most ambiguous country of the five. He does not pronounce, but the interest he has shown in holding the next meeting of the G-20, the organization of which he will be the host, indicates that Modi may be playing in another league.
The BRICS are the most serious proposal of opposition to the monopoly of the West on the international scene. More ambitious, in terms of goals and dimensions, than the Non-Aligned Movement that emerged from the Bandung Conference in 1955. But the difference in interests between the countries that make up it suggests that the future of this organization is not it is still written.
