In the midst of the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be able to count his supporters. The BRICS summit opens this Tuesday in South Africa with the agenda of the bloc’s expansion from emerging countries to new members as well as ways to expand its global political and economic influence.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will welcome the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China from noon until Thursday in Johannesburg. His Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived in the South African economic capital on Monday, as did Chinese President Xi Jinping. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are expected in the morning.
South Africa defends its “non-alignment”
Under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin will participate by videoconference. The 15th Brics summit also comes at a time when divisions on the international scene have been accentuated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
South Africa, China and India have not condemned Moscow since the beginning of the conflict and Brazil has refused to join Western countries in sending arms to Ukraine or imposing sanctions on Russia. . Cyril Ramaphosa also strongly reiterated his policy of “non-alignment” on Sunday, saying that South Africa “will not be drawn into a competition between world powers”.
The issue of enlargement
In a column published Monday in South African media, Xi Jinping said that the leaders at the summit will urge the international community “to promote a greater role for the BRICS cooperation mechanism in global governance”. Producing a quarter of the world’s wealth and comprising 42% of the world’s population, the Brics have in common their demand for a more inclusive global political and economic balance, in particular vis-à-vis the United States and Europe. European Union.
The group is therefore seeking to extend its influence and is considering expanding. About forty nations have applied for membership or expressed an interest in joining the BRICS. Iran, Argentina, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia are notably among the contenders. But the five current members, geographically distant and endowed with unequally growing economies, have “differing opinions on the countries which should join the bloc and the conditions”, notes Jannie Rossouw, of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.