Exercise caution on plans to expand Brics

Much water has flown under the bridge since Brics began gathering as a heads of State formation during 2009-2010. At that time, it was hailed due to the belief that emerging market economies held better prospects than advanced economies reeling from the global financial crisis, and an expectation that the former could join hands and usher in a multipolar world order.

2023 is markedly different from 2009. China is not a developing country or an emerging market anymore. With a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of over $19 trillion and per-capita income close to $13,000, China is now a Great Power with middle-income status.

Under the dictatorship of President Xi Jinping, it is behaving in a far more unilateral, aggressive and expansionist fashion compared to the years when Brics was founded. China has ceased being a team player and is deploying extreme pressure tactics to impose its will on India and other adversaries.

Most importantly, the so-called new Cold War between China and the United States has become the defining structural driver of international relations today. This altered global context explains why China is eager to admit new members into Brics. Xi wants it to be moulded into a large China-led coalition of developing countries that can be mobilised as a bloc that opposes policies and institutions spearheaded by the US.

The Chinese strategy is to hijack Brics by giving membership to authoritarian nations such as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and then using the expanded grouping to bargain with the US for China-endorsed outcomes and norms on international security, economic development and forms of governance. Russia could go along with this Chinese blueprint as Moscow needs every form of backing for its all-out confrontation with Washington.

On the other hand, India is cagey about Brics’ expansion which lets China gain the upper hand in decision-making and agenda-setting. Admitting developing countries who are financially in hock to China could mean the marginalisation of India, which has earned the tag of the voice of the Global South through its own bilateral and multilateral initiatives.

Poor nations such as Papua New Guinea have hailed India as a ‘third voice’ to articulate their interests on the world stage. With the US and China already acknowledged as the two Great Powers of the present era, only genuine emerging democracies such as India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and Nigeria can provide leadership for this third voice in the international system.

Brazil has also expressed reservations about the hurried expansion of Brics. It is an ambitious rising power that does not want to get drowned in an enlarged grouping where its own significance will be diluted. Brazil is also hesitant to turn Brics into a weapon that will be aimed squarely at the US. The forum has delivered results in the past because it had a positive agenda of pragmatic economic cooperation.

Turning it into an ideological cheer squad for China’s struggle with the US is not in the interests of the Global South. There is also understandable unease in India about how unwieldy and unworkable Brics+ can become if many of the 22 countries that have officially requested membership are brought in. Consensus in a five-member group is easier and quicker than in a 10-member or 20-member one.

The larger the institution, the lower the efficiency, in terms of concrete practical deliverables. Still, India or Brazil cannot be seen to be blocking or vetoing deserving large developing countries from Brics membership, as that would harm their bilateral relations with those nations.

Hence the Indian insistence on first establishing rules for expansion and criteria for admission, rather than opening the doors in a pell-mell manner. The Brics ship can founder if it is commandeered by China or turn into a big tent talking shop, which issues angry declarations and denunciations of the US but does nothing tangible on the ground.

A measured and gradual process of expansion is the only advisable course for this institution to survive and deliver.

Sreeram Chaulia is dean, Jindal School of International Affairs. The views expressed are personal