By: Aditya Vashisht
At the recently held BRICS foreign minister’s meeting held in Cape Town, the ubiquitous element was the emphasis on multipolarity. The BRICS member nations emphasized upon the shift which is taking place in the world order which pertains to the change in the international political landscape. It was conveyed to the rest of the world that instead of a few voices, there are many voices and the biggest defect of today’s international political system is that it is unable to properly heed those voices.
The relevance of BRICS has undoubtedly witnessed a stark rise, especially during and after the COVID period as well as amidst the Russia-Ukraine war. The world due to these events is witnessing changes in its political system, in which stresses and Faultline’s have arisen. Or to put it in another way, it is a change under which a significant proportion of the nation states are moving away from the dominance of the US and its Western allies and are intending to carve out their own independent spaces through which they could achieve their own aspirations.
In this context, the recently concluded BRICS meeting is highly important since it represents a new world order, in which the prominent adhesive is the desire to achieve the liberty of developing and maintaining relationships according to a nation’s needs. The nations desire the achievement of a space through which an independent foreign policy can be conducted, a prospect which is hampered by the hegemonic nature of the USA. This explains why countries like Saudi Arabia and for that matter, even Cuba, are keen on becoming a part of the grouping.
The BRICS is a loose grouping, with every member having and pursuing its own interests. This explains why it is not appropriate to term it as an alternative to the G7 grouping. The G7 grouping is a coalition of nations who aren’t just bound by common interests but also follow a common political structure which is democratic. In the case of BRICS, while India, Brazil and South Africa are democracies, Russia and China are led by strongmen, particularly Beijing, which is a one-party authoritarian state.
As such there exists a trust deficit, especially when one takes into account the rivalry between New Delhi and Beijing, an example of different interests can be found through a statement made by Indian FM Dr. S. Jaishankar. One of the understandings which he had reached with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, was to stop ‘neo-colonial’ practices. While Russia took a swipe at the US and its allies through this statement, India quietly took a jab towards China. The existence of a trust deficit is a sensitive matter for India, since the values of a liberal-democratic order are one of the chief reasons why it has grown its relationships with the US and its Western allies.
This diverse character of BRICS can be its Achilles’ heel in another way too. While China and Russia are firewall states i.e. they are not too easily prone to attempts at regime change, the same cannot be said for the democratic members of the BRICS. Their political system opens too many cracks which can easily be exploited by the US bloc to influence the outcome of their elections, bringing a change in rhetoric and thereby weakening the whole BRICS model. While Lula da Silva, the current President of Brazil (and who had been backed by the US), proved to be a disappointment for Washington due to his independent stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and his pursuit of a foreign policy uninfluenced by USA, there still exists a possibility that India’s stand could undergo a change after 2024.
The most important anomaly of BRICS is the existence of China. Beijing, it must be kept in mind, is similar to Washington in its aspirations i.e. it is an aspiring hegemon. Its tendencies towards BRICS can be aptly derived from the statements made by it in the recent BRICS meeting. Beijing emphasized upon ‘assistance’ for the economic development of the Global South, and not significantly upon multilateralism. The idea of a multipolar world, being an anathema for the US, is also an anathema for China, which strives to emerge as a challenger to the US in terms of the dominance of international politics.
The stress made by China upon the admission of new member states can have other motives too. A large membership could provide China greater space to exercise its influence, since among the BRICS members, it is the one which has the largest capacity to finance the development of so many nations. Moreover, in the immediate context, it is necessary for Beijing to have well wishers, since during the Taiwan invasion, which it is most likely to initiate, it would want to have the same scale of support from the Global South which Russia has received during its Ukrainian invasion.
Then too, the addition of so many China friendly states such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Nicaragua etc. risk making the bloc dominated with Chinese machinations, thereby gradually making BRICS lose the very objective which it stood for, that of a multipolar world.
Therefore the BRICS grouping has its both sides. What makes it stand out today is that it manifests a growing desire of many nations to be able to pursue their interests without facing domination. What would be interesting to see that will BRICS remain just an expression or that it could actually become an alternative, as EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar has said? Only time will show what form does the BRICS adopt.
The writer is a blogger. adityavashisht07@gmail.com
