[BRICS-Xiamen]BRICS: Time for Consolidation

BRIC was first mentioned in 2001 as a metaphoric acronym by Jim O’Neil of Goldman Sachs to describe how China, India, Brazil and Russia together would soon challenge the global economic hegemony of G7 powers. By 2003, the concept of the group had gained so much attention that Dominic Wilson published a study titled “Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050,” which cautioned longer time frames of this transformation. It projected BRIC would reach half the size of G7 GDP by 2025 and become even bigger than the G7 by 2040. BRIC foreign ministers began holding independent meetings at the UN from 2006, and since 2009 formal summit meetings have been held regularly. The original acronym melted into history in 2010 when South Africa was added, and the name became BRICS, but the quartet had already far transcended its status as an economic grouping of otherwise unconnected nations. Since then, China’s economic deceleration, Russia’s geo-strategic distractions, India’s divisive politics and political turmoil in Brazil and South Africa have cast a thick shadow over some of the once ambitious expectations for BRICS to become a formidable driver of a transformation of the structures of global governance.

BRICS, however, has gained traction in many other realms that have facilitated early relevancy. At the most visible level, BRICS has already transformed the G7 into the G20. The 2007-2009 global financial crisis – the worst since the Great Depression of 1929 – triggered and accelerated a tectonic drift that has enhanced BRICS participation in global financial decision-making and implementation. The groundswell for reform in post-war global governance institutions has also gained momentum. In this crucial period, BRICS has ensured regular and increasingly frequent interactions through perpetually expanding avenues involving official and nonofficial representatives, ignited new synergies, ideas and support for bold new initiatives in bilateral channels and enhanced regional outreach and global visibility. More recently, the shrinking global leadership of the United States has placed further pressure on BRICS to take charge of several new global initiatives beyond financial governance.

To highlight the magnitude of BRICS interaction, during the run up to the 2016 Goa Summit in India, Indian cities hosted over 50 BRICS meetings across a wide array of sectors involving multiple levels of governmental and non-governmental organizations. With more focus on people-to-people contact, the 2016 summit was preceded by the first BRICS trade fair, first BRICS film festival, first BRICS under-17 football cup and other inclusive events. Various Chinese cities have been hosting similar events since early this year with tremendous success. Heralding the official commencement of the 2017 BRICS summit, the February meet of BRICS Sherpas in Nanjing was attended by over one hundred diplomats, bankers and other dignitaries from the five BRICS member states. Alluding to the intended tone of the 2017 summit, senior Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi urged delegates to make BRICS the force driving rapid growth in developing nations. He asked the members to serve as a voice for developing countries who, according to studies by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), contribute over 80 percent of total global annual economic growth. Projects resulting from these meetings present one measure of BRICS’ strength while its impact on governance structures remains the other critical factor.

The pace of the high-level meetings has been hectic: Beijing hosted a BRICS national security advisers meeting in late July that resulted in several security-related initiatives including those on counterterrorism strategies and cybersecurity. A week before, BRICS education ministers adopted the “Beijing Declaration on Education” to expand equity, quality and exchange of scholars in line with the requirements of the UN Sustainable Development Goal of Education 2030. It’s no secret that most of the elite classes in BRICS even today still prefer to send their children to attend school and work in top G7 countries, which continue to hold the bulk of patents in every field of science and technology. Hangzhou hosted the fifth ministerial meeting of BRICS science and technology ministers, who adopted the “BRICS Action Plan for Innovation Cooperation 2017-2020.” BRICS is home to 42 percent of the world’s population but contributes only 17 percent of the world’s investment in research and development and publishes 27 percent of scientific articles. In the first week of July, Tianjin hosted the second meeting of the BRICS culture ministers, which produced stronger bonds of friendship, empathy and cooperation among BRICS nationals and remains a challenge considering BRICS countries’ drastically different cultural histories, economies and geographies.

Meanwhile BRICS has also expanded its agenda to include other concerns of global governance in sectors like climate change, terrorism and illegal trafficking, which often drive global financial decision-making as well. While expanding its agenda, BRICS has continued to resist expanding membership since South Africa was admitted in 2010. It has resisted suggestions on including new observers or dialogue partners from several aspiring countries or regional organizations that, of course, will eventually be accommodated. There have already been serious proposals to add seven G20 nations as ‘Friends of BRICS’ or ‘BRICS Plus’ as well as requests for close linkage to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. BRICS may not be ready for such organizational expansion yet, but the path ahead is already clear once BRICS consolidates its foundation. Creating a secretariat may be the next critical step to facilitate new ideas.

Consolidation remains the top priority for BRICS at present. The imperceptible drift of intra-BRICS linkages from limited inter-state to wider inter-societal stakeholders is cultivating constituencies grooming enduring camaraderie. In June in Guangzhou, over 300 young athletes from BRICS countries gathered for the second sports meet. Outside the sports arena, BRICS cultural cooperation has achieved substantive expansion. At the same time, Chengdu hosted the second BRICS film festival to explore collaboration in cinema and anchor the group’s collective soft power. The enormous success of the Indian film Dangal in China provided the perfect backdrop for five celebrated BRICS film directors to present a 110-minute compilation of short films highlighting stories of courage, hope, neglect, fear and the future using cinematic language of emotions that bind their people together. Such cultural grounding of BRICS is critical if the venture is to reach the next level. At official levels, BRICS has shown determination to take the lead on issues that were originally seen as beyond its jurisdiction. In June, Tianjin hosted a meeting of BRICS environmental ministers and senior officials who reaffirmed their strong commitment to the Paris climate change deal, which needs even more support from BRICS after the U.S. President withdrew his country from this initiative. In their May meeting in Beijing, BRICS heads of revenue administrations finalized a draft memorandum on cooperation in “capacity building and knowledge sharing” and to set up an international forum to be announced at the September summit.

No doubt BRICS faces challenges as well. Widely varying size and stature of BRICS member states have become increasingly glaring if not yet detrimental to working together. China has clearly emerged as an economic superpower, while Russia is a former superpower and now the second largest exporter of energy. India is young and growing, rapidly attracting attention and investment. While Brazil and South Africa have been mired in domestic political trouble that has affected their economies, the countries have become major beneficiaries of China’s expanding economic outreach, which has also affected their local manufacturing sectors. At its core, BRICS still remains most relevant as a ‘non-Western’ (not anti-Western) grouping of aspirant and rising economies led by China. Together they seek to influence and shape global governance structures to ensure that developing countries do not remain unrepresented in various structures of global governance. BRICS, for instance, has already been successful in increasing the voting shares of developing countries in global institutions such as the IMF in addition to the erection of parallel model institutions like the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement.

Setting aside their much-hyped differences and even domestic political troubles, it is clear that as a group, BRICS continues to receive increasing attention as a key actor in an evolving international system. Today, the group occupies an important place in international governance discourse and is quickly staking claims in global decision-making as well. BRICS continues to be viewed as a valuable alternative to the post-war America-dominated world order. Expanding interests beyond financial governance have fueled growing awareness of organic connections related to security and development – both are becoming increasingly inclusive and creating space for new issues and actors. The future role of BRICS as a catalyst for restructuring antiquated instruments of global governance has only received limited encouragement in Western discourse. In contrast, assessments in most developing nations remain far more upbeat and usually call for a cautious wait-and-see approach to the BRICS model in not just reforming existing patterns of fundraising, but more importantly in directing financial flow to critical sectors like infrastructure in the developing world’s most cash-starved economies.

The author is a professor at the School ofInternational Studies, Jawaharlal NehruUniversity, New Delhi.