Should the West be concerned about BRICS?

By Andrey Kortunov

When the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, and China got together for their first summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia, back in 2009, the event did not capture a lot of attention in the West. The Group of 20 that had started its regular summit meetings a year before got much more media and analytical prominence.

In 2011, BRIC turned into BRICS after South Africa joined the group. Many critics of BRICS argued that its members scattered across three continents had very little to offer to each other and all of them remained heavily dependent on their established relations with the leading Western partners.

However, over years, the group has demonstrated remarkable resilience. Not only has it survived, but it has also succeeded in member expansion and launching a whole set of affiliated bodies including the New Development Bank (NDB) and the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) as well as mechanisms for multilateral parliamentary exchanges and civil society interactions.

This gradual evolution of BRICS raised not only interest but also concerns in the West about how the group might affect the global balance of economic and political powers. For example, China was allegedly using BRICS to win the hearts and minds of the Global South by offering outwardly very attractive though not realistic cooperation models.

Such allegations do not hold water. As Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the 15th BRICS Summit held in South Africa in 2023, BRICS is not a gathering for countries to take sides, nor an exercise of creating bloc confrontation; rather, it is an endeavor to expand the architecture of peace and development.

Nobody in China or other countries plan to turn BRICS into an anti-Western political alliance or an economic integration project. The BRICS members have not even considered forming a bilateral political or military bloc.

The fact is that many developing countries are seeking to expand cooperation within BRICS, which explains the strong appeal of the BRICS cooperation mechanism. Over the past years, the group has focused on shared development, advancing cooperation in trade, investment, energy and finance. It has also broadened its collaboration in areas such as supply chains, logistics, agricultural and food security and cross-border payments to drive global economic growth.

Moreover, against the backdrop of some Western countries attempting to maintain their hegemonic status through technological blockades, BRICS countries are working to improve global technology governance, ensuring that technological achievements benefit more people. They have held forums on industrial internet and digital manufacturing, as well as on big data for sustainable development, fostering a new momentum for global growth.

At the same time, BRICS cooperation leverages the opportunities of the digital economy by adopting the BRICS Partnership on Digital Economy Framework and launching an initiative on cooperation among BRICS countries in the manufacturing industry's digital transformation, promoting shared development.

In addition, it would be inconceivable to imagine that BRICS could present a mortal danger to West-centered institutions like the IMF, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the Group of Seven (G7) and the rest. The reality is that many actual and would-be BRICS members are deeply engaged with Western institutions and there are no compelling reasons for these nations to break the multiple ties linking them to the West. The IMF or IBRD might look not very efficient but this does not mean that the Global South is ready to brush them off and start building a new global financial architecture from scratch.

As the first multilateral development bank initiated entirely by emerging economies and developing countries, the NDB provides financial support for the development of various sectors, including infrastructure, clean energy, environmental protection and digital infrastructure. If the NDB can emerge as a premier bank for emerging economies, their potential clients would appreciate this opportunity to mobilize resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects.

Furthermore, BRICS facilitates multilateralism. Most of the Western multilateral institutions are only quasi-multilateral in the sense that the United States always has the last word in the IBRD, G7, NATO and AUKUS. There is no such hegemonic power within BRICS – all its members have equal rights and responsibilities.

The group unites with developing nations in the pursuit of development and revitalization, upholding fairness and justice and continuously striving to promote economic growth. The BRICS cooperation mechanism is driving the global governance system toward greater balance.

The true multilateralism and international cooperation promoted by organizations such as BRICS provides the world with an opportunity for better development. Western politicians and academics should come to grips with this new reality that BRICS represents underrepresented nations without being anti-Western.

Andrey Kortunov is academic director of the Moscow-based Russian International Affairs Council.