/ world today news/ Although the West does not lose hope to thwart the BRICS summit in South Africa, planned for the end of August, that is, to prevent Vladimir Putin from attending due to an “arrest warrant” issued by the International Criminal Court with headquartered in the Netherlands, the organization is on the eve of a major expansion. The hype surrounding Putin’s trip will die down, but the new BRICS format will remain.
The problem with the “order” is that the South African authorities still cannot find a way out of the trap set by the West: they naturally want to see the president of Russia at the summit in Johannesburg, but do not know how to circumvent obligations to the ICC. The country has not only signed, but also ratified the international treaty establishing the ICC (unlike, for example, China and India, which do not even sign the treaty, or Russia and the United States, which do not ratify it), and now it has to come up with something. Various options were discussed: suspending participation, withdrawing from the treaty altogether, simply refusing to recognize the “order”. But all this will complicate relations with the West, and South Africa does not want that, just as it does not want to quarrel with Russia and appear dependent to its BRICS partners.
But no decision has yet been taken, giving Western countries the opportunity to speculate on South Africa’s position. The day before, the British “Daily Telegraph” even wrote that several South African government ministers are trying to convince President Ramaphosa of the need to move the summit to China. On Thursday, however, the countries’ foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, flatly denied plans for a postponement, and Sergei Lavrov said he does not read English tabloids. Both statements were made at a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers held in Cape Town, South Africa. This meeting itself and what accompanied it is much more interesting than all the speculation about the “order” and explains why the West really wants to interfere in the August meeting.
The fact is that at the end of the summer, South Africa will not only gather the leaders of the “Big Five” countries, but also host a meeting in the format of “Friends of BRICS”. And these are not five countries (although so large and significant), but at least a dozen more. In total, about 30 countries have already expressed their desire to join BRICS, with their number increasing significantly even in the last year, and more than 12 are in a high state of readiness. As part of last year’s BRICS Summit, the Friends of BRICS Meeting was already held, but it, like the main summit itself, was held in a virtual format. And this time, everyone will gather in person in South Africa, that is why it is so important for the West that Putin is not there, or rather that he is only present online: this will allow both to talk about the isolation of Russia and to blur much the topic of potential BRICS expansion.
And it is really impressive, which has already been seen from the “Friends of BRICS” ministerial level meeting held these days in Cape Town. The foreign ministers of a further 12 countries joined the five, including such notables as Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Saudis are also seeking to join the BRICS New Development Bank, and the participation of the world’s largest oil exporter will undoubtedly raise its status. Especially against the background of talks about the petroyuan, that is, the sale of oil by the Saudis to the Chinese for yuan. In addition, the BRICS countries are increasingly talking about introducing their own currency for payments in mutual trade (according to estimates, in the future it may represent a quarter of the entire world trade turnover).
Among those who still want to join BRICS are: Argentina (number three country in Latin America), Venezuela (with some of the largest oil reserves in the world), Nigeria and Ethiopia (number two and number three countries in Africa), Pakistan and Bangladesh (one of the most populous countries in the world). Mexico and Thailand are thinking about joining, and from the smaller countries – Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Syria. There are also countries from the post-Soviet space – Kazakhstan, Belarus and others.
But the BRICS’ most important potential asset is the Islamic world: virtually all the key powers of the 1.5 billion Muslim world want to join the Big Five. The only nuclear Islamic power – Pakistan – has already been mentioned, but besides it: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, UAE, Malaysia, Iran, Algeria, Tunisia, Bahrain. Even Turkey is looking at BRICS, that is, a non-Western club can expand even with a NATO country.
So far, there is no understanding of exactly how the expansion will take place – it is clear that at the first stage, not all 12 countries whose applications have already been submitted will be accepted, but only a few of them. Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Indonesia have the best chances. On the one hand, all the current participants in BRICS have their “favorites”, but no one wants to push away the other applicants. The “Friends of BRICS” format may transform into BRICS+, but it is clear that an organization of thirty members will be very different from the five-power format.
Of course, even the level of coordination (let alone integration) among the five current BRICS members lags far behind the level that exists in the Western G-7, but BRICS was created as an alternative to the Western globalization project. It cannot have a senior owner and junior clients (not to mention that six of the seven countries of the “Seven” actually belong to one – Western – civilization, and five completely different ones are represented in BRICS). And now, after the beginning of the open conflict between the West and Russia and the growing confrontation between the West and China, BRICS does not really leave an alternative: it should not just expand, but become a platform for the development of a new version of globalization based on on the construction of horizontal connections in the non-Western world, which are the basis for the formation of the new world order.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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