Cape Town, Tel Aviv More than a dozen countries are pushing for admission to the BRICS club of the most important emerging countries. At a meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, government representatives from the previous member states are currently discussing enlargement. Argentina, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are reportedly among the candidates.
Depending on how the round of enlargement turns out, the BRICS alliance could create a counterweight to the alliances of Western democracies. At least that seems to be the goal of the Chinese government, which is pushing ahead with expansion. In addition to China, the BRICS countries include Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa.
The most important candidate for accession is Saudi Arabia. The country was closely allied with the USA for a long time and mainly supplied its oil to Western countries. Recently, however, it has come closer to China. In the future, the People’s Republic will receive 690,000 barrels of oil per day from Saudi Arabia. In addition, the Saudi oil giant Aramco is building an oil refinery in China for ten billion dollars.
The country’s finance minister said in January he was interested in doing some oil trading in the Chinese yuan. This would create competition for the currently dominant petrodollar. “The Saudis no longer want to be unilaterally dependent on the Americans,” says a Western businessman in Riyadh.
The BRICS countries would benefit in several ways from Saudi Arabia’s membership. Riyadh could bring stability to energy markets.
>> Read here: G7 decides on new Russia sanctions – but the “anti-West club” BRICS could soon grow
It could also upgrade the New Development Bank (NDB) as a donor. This development bank, founded by the BRICS countries, sees itself as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and is currently financing 96 infrastructure projects worldwide with 33 billion dollars. Much more was planned.
Beijing and Riyadh also want to harmonize their investment programs. China is investing in infrastructure worldwide with its “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), and Saudi Arabia is doing something similar with its “Vision 2030”. “The BRI and Vision 2030 complement each other in many ways,” says Abdulaziz Al Sager, chairman of the Saudi Gulf Research Center.
BRICSSummit in August: Putin coming to South Africa?
China and South Africa in particular are campaigning for the admission of new members. Statements by China’s head of state Xi Jinping indicate that he sees the BRICS as a counterweight to the US and Western alliances and institutions. “The admission of fresh blood will bring new vitality to the BRICS cooperation and increase the influence of the BRICS countries,” he said at the annual meeting of the alliance of states in Beijing last year.
China and South Africa in particular are campaigning for the admission of new members.
(Photo: IMAGO/Xinhua)
South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor was more explicit: the BRICS bloc was “part of a newly modeled global order”.
South Africa is hosting the BRICS summit in August, which could make the final decision on admitting new members. It is questionable whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend the meeting – an international arrest warrant was issued against him in mid-March for suspected war crimes. It is about the kidnapping of children from Ukraine to Russia, for which Putin could be criminally responsible, according to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
From left to right: China’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, South Africa’s Naledi Pandor, Russia’s Sergei Lavrov and Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
(Photo: Reuters)
Kremlin chief or not: host country South Africa expects to gain a lot of prestige from holding the rotating BRICS presidency. This is probably one of the reasons why the country has been distancing itself from the West in general and the USA in particular for some time now.
The new direction recently culminated in a heated dispute with Washington over an alleged arms supply from South Africa to Russia, which could lead to sanctions from the West and the cancellation of the free trade agreement between the US and South Africa.
The expansion is controversial among members
Brazil and India do not want such escalations, nor do they want to be part of a Chinese-dominated bloc. An expansion of the BRICS alliance could increase cooperation with other emerging economies, believes Sriparna Pathak, for example, who teaches at the Jindal School of International Affairs in the Indian state of Haryana. “But there is also a great danger that China will trap countries with an anti-Western stance.”
In contrast, the Indian government hopes, together with other democratic states, to limit China’s bid for power in Asia. To this end, India is already cooperating with the USA, Australia and Japan in the Quad security policy alliance. The country also wants to expand arms cooperation with the USA – among other things, in order to better arm itself in view of the current border conflict with China, which repeatedly leads to violence.
The establishment of the BRIC alliance goes back to an idea of the former chief economist at Goldman Sachs.
(Photo: dpa)
Admittedly, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not always agree with Europeans and Americans – in the Ukraine war, for example, it avoids condemning Russia’s invasion and continues to maintain close ties with the government in Moscow.
Nevertheless, the democratically governed India also sees itself as a partner of Western countries. “Compared to China and Russia, India has friendly relations with the West and would not benefit from taking a stand against it,” Pathak comments. The same applies to Brazil.
reform of global institutions
However, accession could also strengthen the alliance without alienating the West. However, observers such as Tim Cohen, chief economic officer of the South African “Daily Maverick” and a leading commentator on the Cape, point out that the members already often have very different interests and have very different sized economies.
The greatest thing they have in common is currently the goal of developing alternatives to the political and ideological dominance of the West. When it comes to gaining more international weight, Cohen believes it would make sense to bring in other populous countries, such as Nigeria, with its 225 million people, or Indonesia, with its 275 million people.
However, if the BRICS group is aiming for specific goals, the criteria would have to be far more selective, otherwise there would be a risk of disputes within the group.
South Africa is expected to gain a great deal of prestige from the rotating BRICS presidency.
(Photo: IMAGO/ITAR-TASS)
Jim O’Neill, on whose ideas the founding of the BRIC and later BRICS alliances are based, proposes a population of 100 million people and a minimum size of the economy as criteria for admission.
Above all, countries that seek to reform global institutions that are still dominated by the West, said the former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, should be sought. But to do so, the union would need to expand in a controlled and accountable manner. And should not simply accept members arbitrarily for the sake of its size.
Collaboration: Mathias Peer, Alexander Busch
More: Putin’s war is a crucial test for the BRICS club