The three-day meeting of the BRICS countries has started in South Africa. One focus should be how the international community can grow – and how it can position itself as a representative of the Global South.
The members of the BRICS group of important emerging countries have started their summit in South Africa. China’s President Xi Jinping, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in the economic metropolis of Johannesburg – Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was connected via video. He would have been arrested in South Africa because of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
Putin used the meeting as an opportunity to once again justify the termination of the grain agreement with Ukraine with sharp criticism of the West and of Kiev. For him, the meeting is above all an opportunity to show that Russia still has allies.
China’s President Xi Jinping had his Trade Minister Wang Wentao read a statement: “There is a country that wants to maintain its hegemony and has done everything to paralyze the emerging and developing countries”. The United States was not named. “Those who develop quickly will be contained by them. Those who catch up will be hindered.”
Lula: Global South “better organize”
However, Brazilian President Lula emphasized that the BRICS group is not directed against others. Rather, it is about a better organization of the Global South, he wrote on Platform X, formerly Twitter. “The BRICS are not an antithesis to the G7, the G20 or anyone else,” Lula wrote. “We want to organize ourselves as the Global South. We are important in the global debate and sit at the negotiating table on an equal footing with the European Union and the United States.”
South Africa’s President Ramaphosa called for a “fundamental reform of global financial institutions”. These should be able to react more agilely to the challenges of developing countries. The BRICS countries are committed to fairer world trade.
Group should grow – how exactly is still unclear
An important focus of the summit meeting is the planned expansion of the group of five. It wants to become “BRICS plus” and create a counterbalance to the geopolitical and economic dominance of the West with numerous new members. The member states still have to agree on admission criteria. It is also still unclear when additional countries will be included.
According to South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, around 40 countries have expressed a more or less binding interest in BRICS membership, 23 of them concrete, including Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Egypt, Iran and Bangladesh.
The member states have different positions on the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. Only China gives Putin full backing and does not want to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Brazil, India and South Africa are more neutral. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is leading an African peace initiative to end the Ukraine war, but recent efforts have had no discernible success.
China pro-enlargement, India skeptical
China is also seen as a driving force behind enlargement. According to experts, China wants to use “BRICS plus” as a stage for political activism against the USA and move itself to the center of the world order. Brazil is also pushing for other countries to join. India, on the other hand, takes a rather critical view of “BRICS plus”. The country fears it could lose influence in the group with the possible inclusion of several pro-China nations. Above all, South Africa is hoping for increased economic cooperation and less dependence on the US dollar as the global reserve currency.