Expansion worries

Enlarging Brics will not inevitably restore relevance

On August 22, the heads of government of the Brics nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — are due to meet for a summit. Ahead of this meeting, however, major questions have already begun to emerge about the possible expansion of the grouping. It has been reported that China is enthusiastic about introducing additional members. Brazil and India are less so, both about the idea and about Beijing’s preferred additions. This difference goes to the heart of what Brics may represent and whether it is capable of living up to its potential as a counterweight to West-dominated multilateral structures.

It is clear that China would like to see Brics populated by more countries like Russia — those with their own reasons to side with Beijing against the West. This would allow the grouping to take a more direct or even adversarial approach in creating alternatives to Western-led structures. One proposed candidate is Saudi Arabia, which in recent years soured on the West and has begun an outreach to East Asian countries, especially China. Including the Saudis would please Beijing; India will not find it easy to object since it has a strong relationship with the country, based in part around counter-terrorism activity. Yet New Delhi would not like to see Brics become a “China-plus” grouping. This would merely add to Beijing’s reach in international affairs, which is not necessarily in India’s interests. India would thus like any new Brics members to be dominated by those countries which have their own reasons for suspecting China’s geopolitical heft — such as, for example, Indonesia. Reportedly, India and Brazil have expressed a preference that new members of the grouping be established democracies, such as Indonesia, rather than monarchies or autocracies like Saudi Arabia.

This debate reflects Brics’ broader problems. In the early 2000s, when the grouping evolved, it was merely a stage for large emerging economies to reflect on and seek to shape the global geo-economic order to their advantage. But, since that period, the growth of the Chinese economy, the reversal of its internal liberalisation, and its aggressive anti-Western stance have given a new flavour to Brics. New Delhi, like many other developing-world capitals, has sought to carve out a foreign policy stance that is independent of Sino-Western tensions, and thus has less and less incentive to see Brics flourish. The grouping has thus lost relevance, as India gives more importance to the Quad and the G20, and China has developed its own forums to engage the emerging world that are more imperial and less equal. Expanding Brics is unlikely to restore its lost relevance.

However, Indian policymakers clearly intend to keep Brics going even if it appears to have no real energy or purpose at the moment, perhaps keeping in mind the possibility that the global situation might shift in the future and render it relevant once again. If so, the logical approach to expanding Brics is to insist that it be done gradually and by consensus, include objective criteria, and not be driven by momentary shifts of geopolitical alignment (such as Saudi Arabia’s current disillusionment with the West). This position marries principle and pragmatism, and should be easy for the Indian leadership to justify and defend at the August summit.