BRICS open and inclusive stage to promote common development and multilateralism

Signboards of the 15th BRICS summit are seen in a street of Johannesburg, South Africa, Aug 17, 2023. The 15th BRICS summit is to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Aug 22-24. [Photo/Xinhua]

This is an editorial from China Daily.

Some Western media outlets have been tirelessly trying to throw a wet blanket on the 15th BRICS Summit that South Africa is hosting this week by hyping up the so-called internal strife among its members against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis and the United States' painstaking efforts to isolate Russia and China from the rest of the world.

However, to their disappointment, not only will the first in-person meeting of BRICS leaders since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak be held as scheduled in Johannesburg from Tuesday to Thursday, but it will also be on a larger scale. More than 60 leaders across Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean, along with about 20 chiefs of international organizations, including the United Nations and African Union, have been invited to attend it.

This demonstrates the organization's strategic autonomy from the Western agenda, as well as the unity of the Global South under the principles of BRICS — noninterference, equality, and mutual benefit — despite the ceaseless attempts of the US to sow discord among various countries.

The theme of the event — "BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development and Inclusive Multilateralism" — serves to expose the extent to which the developed world, under the influence of the US, has ignored its international responsibility to help Africa effectively boost its growth. It is a continent that has been taken advantage by the West for too long.

Worse, the US and some of its allies smear any other non-US club countries' investment in and cooperation with African countries as "neo-colonialism", as they would rather let the continent remain what it was than usher in a new development era.

With BRICS cooperation expanding from finance and trade to technology, innovation, digital and green economies and human culture, the Johannesburg summit looks set to benefit not only the five members but also other countries and organizations attending it by setting a stage for them to strengthen project-oriented communications. That will be conducive to tapping into their complementarity and cooperation potential via such mechanisms as "BRICS plus".

Unlike any gathering orchestrated by the US under the lofty banner of "values" or with the stated purpose of safeguarding the "rules-based order", the BRICS Summit will neither be a talking shop to form cliques around one single country nor a platform to try and reshuffle the global industry and supply chains for its narrow ends under the cover of "de-risking". The real risk stems from the major countries surrendering their strategic autonomy to the US, a country that is unable to manage even its own business well without bullying others.

As the achievements of the past 14 BRICS summits prove, the Johannesburg meeting will serve to inject fresh vitality into the bloc and add new certainties to the increasingly volatile world by promoting cooperation rather than "decoupling", and upholding multilateralism instead of unilateralism.