India Wary of BRICS Expansion
By Umer Beigh
India Fears an Expansion of BRICS That Favors China’s Clout
This October, Russia will be hosting the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa—Summit in Kazan. The event will test the effectiveness of a multilateral body at a time when its key members are involved in a war, holding grudges and fermenting growing hostility.
“We expect PM (Narendra Modi) to come in for the BRICS summit,” Russian Ambassador to India, Danis Alipov, said. A forum of regional powers, BRICS aspires for a more significant role in world politics to bring change in global governance, an “alternative” to the EU and NATO-dominated G7.
Over 40 nations reportedly have expressed interest in joining BRICS. The expanded BRICS+ will represent 45% of the global population, which has over 40% of global oil production and more than 28% of GDP. This expansionist shift in foreign investment strategies is viewed to be a major step towards “multipolarism”.
In January 2024, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, Egypt, and Ethiopia were sent invitations to join the alliance of BRICS. Among them, Saudi Arabia hasn’t confirmed the invitation so far, while Argentina has formally refused to join the foray.
The underlying missing gaps in the international relations system after the end of the Cold War, concerning the United Nations, have been ineffective in putting an end to Israeli aggression and war crimes in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the ongoing crisis in Sudan and Ukraine. NATO has become an expansionist aggressive alliance that demands uni party group think among its members. BRICS seeks to be a fulcrum to the financial clout behind NATO, namely the EU and the US dollar.
The shortcomings after the global combat of terrorism and the 2008 financial crisis have resulted in a reduction of US predominance and given rise to anti-US sentiment emanating from different quarters of the Global South, which has allowed Russia and China to make rapid inroads.
As Zhang Maorong, a researcher at China Institute of Contemporary International Relationship posits the failure of international institutions to stand by the emerging nations at crunch or crisis times became another case in point: “This is why a new group such as the BRICS was crucially needed to be formed to sustain itself, i.e., Global South countries,” Zhang mentions.
BRICS does not yet have its own institutionalized parliamentary structure. But I believe this idea will be realized in the future. Your forum, I am sure, will contribute to this,
Russian President Vladimir Putin told the participants at the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St. Petersburg, on July 11.
Indian Concern With China’s Clout
A country with a huge marketplace, India remains wary of China utilizing BRICS to expand its strategic influence in the developing world. Several Indian experts have opined how this will undermine India’s growing engagement with these nations.
“For countries like Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar that cannot escape China’s orbit, BRICS affords a cover for them to diversify their relationships with India, Brazil, and other global south countries and thus hedge against China,” argues Sharon Seah, a senior fellow at ASEAN Studies Centre.
Fearing the dominance of China, India is showing reluctance with Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Turkey queuing for membership which would likely increase China’s clout.
Strategically, New Delhi tries to maintain a balance by borrowing money directly from China, which is a key contributor to BRICS. India feels more secure about taking finances from a multilateral institution of which China is a member.
The voices for de-dollarization have been taking place for some time. To that the Indian government has raised reservations to trade in yuan. At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit 2024, India rejected the proposal presented by Russia that was optimistically promoting the de-dollarization drive of China which called for the use of local currencies for international trade exchanges.
Similarly, when South Africa called an emergency virtual meeting against the Israeli bloodbath in Palestine in 2023, PM Modi skipped participating in the chorus of anti-Israel voices. The reason was that India didn’t feel like annoying the US interest, while invoking a non-alignment policy it didn’t want to be seen as entering an alliance with Russia or China.
India is concerned primarily about developing countries falling under debt trapped with China’s surplus economy. The reservation with expansionism is that India wants to slow down the process by seeking a gap of five years for the reopening of membership into BRICS.
Calls for De-dollarization
Iran, a major oil producer in the Middle East, has been campaigning for de-dollarization for a long time and is seeking a replacement with yuan to settle trade with China. The interests of Russia, China, and now Iran have pushed the BRICS block to work on an independent financial system persistently. The Russian deputy FM proposed correcting a settlement before the structure within BRICS, last month.
On July 8, Russian official Igor Morgulov said this system would be free from any third-party dominance: Igor said,
We are leaving the dollar-dominated space and developing the mechanism and tools for a truly independent financial system.
The possibility of BRICS counterbalancing G7 is also projected as an alternative, especially by China. The political differences and fear of increasing influence among its members have been apparent, and India has been unable to maintain a long-term effective relationship with its neighbor China. Brazil too has been wary of Beijing and Moscow’s dominance in the bloc.
India likely prefers not to side with the BRICS alliance that helps China increase its clout and create an alternative bloc to G20. While considering the critical aspect of BRICS being its population, GDP, land, world trade, and global forex, India does want to engage with BRICS sectoral cooperation that reportedly accounts for more than 30 subject areas.
In 2023, BRICS accounted for over 31.5% of global GDP, surpassing the G7 nation share of 30.7%. After being conceptualized in 2001, BRICS is being projected as a group of growing economies that is predicted to become a dominant force in the global economy by 2050. The BRICS official motive is “to serve the common interests of emerging market economies and developing countries”.
The group has consistently evolved from an economic grouping on paper to a platform for cooperation in various areas, reflecting changing global dynamics. Many experts opine that this BRICS collaboration optimistically reflects the ‘concert of civilizations’ rather than the ‘clash of civilizations’.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has himself uttered that,
BRICS countries are like five fingers, short and long if extended, but a mighty fist if clenched together.
One of the worthy aspects of the BRICS that needs emphasis is that no BRICS members cross the redlines of the group principles. At the Venezuela incidents in 2019 and Brazil’s continental leadership ambitions, the Venezuela issue was left out of the BRICS final declarations. Similarly, in India and China, border disputes and the resulting confrontations get no attention in BRICS discussions.
In the words of researchers Siphamandla Zondi, Odilile Ayodele, and Siphumelele Duma, who writes in “Towards Deeper Intra-BRICS Cooperation: An Argument”, the BRICS that Goldman Sachs first conceptualized as an economic bloc, “but what emerged is a broader power bloc signaling a potential to be a political, cultural, economic and ideational alternative to the G7.” To that, India remains wary of the Chinese dominant power bloc which hinders India’s economic interest in the region.
