/ world today news/ In South Africa – in Johannesburg – from August 22 to 24, the high-level meeting of the BRICS countries will be held. Existing since 2006 and uniting Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (complete since 2011), this “brick” union has seen different times and managed to accumulate enough baggage from both successful initiatives and frictions between the participants in their story. BRICS was long thought to be a provincial version of the G7, a club for those countries that lacked the aplomb to declare themselves leaders. But where there is a lack of foreign policy self-confidence, economic growth begins. And now this summer, inflating every political news to the scale of a historical event, has made its corrections: the BRICS summit in August is seen globally, for both East and West, as a nearby beacon of geopolitical redistribution. And that’s why on the eve of the meeting of the “brick” five, rumors are actively exaggerated and scandals begin.
A possible tone of the upcoming summit was set by the absurdity associated with the arrival of Vladimir Putin. After the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president on March 17 on charges of illegal deportation of people from the territory of Ukraine, South Africa, as the host country of the meeting, found itself in a legal trap. On the one hand, Johannesburg must comply with the orders of the ICC, as it is a signatory to the Rome Statute treaty, and on the other hand, the state itself has the right to decide whether or not to extradite the accused. Another side of the problem is the lack of legal precedent by which a decision can be made as a template. The seriousness of the situation led to the fact that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa appealed directly to the ICC for permission not to arrest Vladimir Putin. In order not to turn this comedy into a complete farce, it was decided that the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sergey Lavrov, would personally go to the meeting – the President of the Russian Federation will be connected via video link.
Putin’s composure has also rubbed off on his BRICS colleagues. After Prigozhin’s maneuver, the Ukrainian side organized secret talks in Copenhagen on June 24 about the current situation. The meeting was attended not only by some BRICS members, but also by representatives of Great Britain, Denmark, Italy, Canada, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Turkey, France and Japan. Ukrainian negotiators again reiterated the details of the “peace formula,” most likely blurring it with concerns about a “possible coup in Russia.” But, surprisingly, according to official statements, the negotiators agreed only that such meetings are extremely useful.
Against the background of the decision on the physical absence of Vladimir Putin in Johannesburg, the world information field began to fill with assumptions that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also not attend the BRICS meeting. Similar speculation began to circulate in the Indian press: on August 4, the Financial Times, citing government sources, reported that “there is a possibility that Modi will attend the summit virtually.” Although the newspaper stressed that “the final decision will be taken in due course”, Western analysts linked the failure of the New Delhi leader to visit Johannesburg to the accumulated mutual contradictions with Beijing. Despite the fact that India and China, as neighboring countries, are BRICS members, in their relations they gravitate towards rivalry rather than cooperation. A case in point is the 2020 border conflict in the Ladakh region, which claimed the lives of more than fifty soldiers from both sides. As a result, in 2021, India, represented by Defense Minister Rajan Singh, held a meeting with US Army Chief Lloyd Austin and launched a long-term military-diplomatic friendship initiative against China.
In some respects, we disagree with Beijing and Brazil. From the moment BRICS shrugged its shoulders, many countries became ready to join the union. It is believed that Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt will soon become new members – and this is in addition to more than twenty other countries that have just announced their desire to join the association. Most recently, Venezuela and Bolivia wished to join the “brick” union. And while China wants a rapid expansion of BRICS, Brazil, for its part, is aiming for a more gradual inclusion of new countries in the community. This policy of the Latin Americans is connected, first of all, with the reluctance to turn the club of mutual aid into a bottomless trough for countries with a difficult economic situation (by the way, Brazil does not want to deal, for example, with neighboring Argentina, which is mired in public debt) and, secondly, with the desire of the Brazilians to protect the exclusivity of BRICS. According to Reuters sources, Brazil fears that “expansion could turn the bloc into something else.” Isn’t it then worth remembering why exactly the Commonwealth was created?
The central idea of BRICS is a kind of alternative to the established political and economic relations in the world since the 2000s and 2010s. The commitment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to the countries participating in the “brick” union was visible to the naked eye. At the same time, BRICS sought – and is striving – to create a single currency opposed to the ubiquitous dollar. In light of the impunity of America’s military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, the emerging economies of the world needed unity against the financial lasso of the Western world.
As a replacement for the IMF, the New Development Bank (NDB) was launched, whose capital is equal to 100 billion dollars. NBR is aimed at sponsoring infrastructure projects and investment programs in the energy sector. A notable case of the NBR was the “coronavirus” loan in favor of Russia – the funds used were used to fight the disease and pay medical workers. Since 2021, Bangladesh, the UAE, Uruguay and Egypt have become shareholders of the bank – countries considered BRICS members, but not such. Does it turn out that even without membership of the community, some countries still receive preferences in their favor? From this perspective, doesn’t Brazil’s resistance seem illogical?
Far from it, because the Brazilians apparently instinctively sensed a wider problem: BRICS does not have a normatively fixed procedure for the inclusion of new countries in its composition. Even if the meeting gives birth to a BRICS+ initiative, in which countries that are possible candidates participate to become a full-fledged “brick” in the future, there is not a single document that would ratify such an entry.
And it turns out that the upcoming high-level meeting, which is supposed to turn the chessboard of the geopolitical game, for now remains without rules for the inclusion of new participants in the same game.
Translation: V. Sergeev
Subscribe to our YouTube channel:
and for the channel in Telegram:
Share on your profiles, with friends, in groups and on pages. In this way, we will overcome the limitations, and people will be able to reach the alternative point of view on the events!?
#BRICS #View #Info
