Journalist Anthony Rowley wrote an opinion piece, published by South China Morning, on how the BRICS bloc could potentially evolve into a counterpart to the Group of Seven in world affairs, causing a profound impact on international relations.
“The BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - are busy building a bigger house just now, with the size of their family looking set to grow, perhaps quite dramatically. But it is not so much size that matters as the diverse areas into which BRICS members are projecting their influence.
Some see the bloc building greater influence in reform of the international economic and financial system and in securing a bigger voice and vote for developing nations at the International Monetary Fund. It has already launched the New Development Bank (NDB) and members are promoting new currency and reserve arrangements.
More than forty countries have either formally applied or expressed interest in joining BRICS, according to South Africa's top diplomat in charge of relations with the bloc. These include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Argentina, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia.
BRICS appeared economically too diverse and geographically scattered to be effective when it was born as the BRIC group, without South Africa, in 2009. Yet this very diversity seems to have guided it towards a more global perspective than that demonstrated by other regional groupings.
Such facts are being largely overlooked by commentators in the run-up to the 15th annual BRICS summit to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, later this month. They are more concerned with Russian President Vladimir Putin decision not to attend the BRICS summit in person.
Yet, it is unlikely to be Putin's actions, including the war in Ukraine, that take centre stage at the summit, but rather how the nations interested in joining BRICS view actions there by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. One reason so many emerging economies are considering BRICS membership now is that they are weary of being cajoled or coerced into taking sides in the divide between the U.S. and China, and in the Russia-Ukraine confrontation.
BRICS is a natural pole of attraction because its chief focus is to promote multilateralism and global governance, not least in the areas of economics and finance. These principles are seen by some to be in jeopardy now, however, because of perceived rivalry between China and India, just when the potential attraction of the bloc as a balancing force in world affairs is at an all-time high.
Non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Hung Tran believes that BRICS ‘could evolve to become a counterpart to the Group of Seven (G7) in world affairs, resulting in a profound impact on international relations’. Whether this is positive or negative depends on whether China's or India's approach prevails.
In 2015, the year of the NDB's founding, the bloc launched a Contingent Reserve Arrangement of $100 billion to provide support to members in case of balance of payments problems, potentially offering BRICS members an alternative financing source to the IMF.
Even earlier, in 2010, the grouping launched an interbank cooperation mechanism to facilitate cross-border payment and settlements between banks in member countries in local currencies. Linking their national payment systems is also being explored by some member countries.
In these and other respects, including some of its members' launch of central bank digital currencies, BRICS differs from regional trade and investment agreements that some of its members belong to individually, such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework in the Asia-Pacific.
The BRICS idea came into being in 2001 when Jim O'Neil of Goldman Sachs suggested the acronym to describe four key emerging markets - he did not include South Africa - and was not taken entirely seriously at the time”. -Anthony Rowley, South China Morning
After it was kicked out of the former G8, the Kremlin has doubled down on its efforts in turning BRICS into a viable alternative to the G7.
Now with other emerging economies such as China eager to escape perceived Western domination, an expanded BRICS has the potential to not only become a counterweight to the Western-dominated Group of Seven but the bloc of developing countries has the ability to be an even bigger driver of development than the Western Group of Seven major economies.