Nikolai Bobkin, political scientist, Institute of the USA and Canada. Academician G.A. Arbatov

BRICS summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) attracted global interest not seen since the group was first formed 14 years ago. The whole world followed the forum of the heads of five states held in Johannesburg from August 22 to 24, which ended, as Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova noted, with “brilliant results” and the failure of “Russia’s isolation.” In her Telegram channel, she noted that “isolation”, like burning Western tanks, is lying in a ditch. Indeed, the United States and its allies have been intriguing for many months against the strengthening of the BRICS, but none of the intrigues of the West have worked.

Today, the consolidation of the BRICS has turned the group into a powerful international force capable of challenging Washington’s geopolitical and economic goals. Ignoring the BRICS, as the US has been inclined to do in the past, will no longer work. Today it accounts for 41% of the world’s population, 31.5% of the world’s gross domestic product and 16% of world trade.

In the international arena the influence of the BRICS is also growing countries are increasingly cooperating together. During the war in Ukraine, Moscow’s BRICS partners provided economic and diplomatic assistance to Russia in the face of Western attempts to isolate Moscow. Brazil, India, China and South Africa participated with Russia in 166 BRICS events in 2022. And some BRICS members have become important export markets for Russia.

The US sees this as an attempt by Moscow and Beijing to turn the BRICS into an anti-G7 group to oppose the West. This approach reflects America’s desire to prevent the creation and development of global structures beyond its own control. Washington continues to view the BRICS as an instrument of confrontation and geopolitical rivalry, but none of the participants, both current and aspiring to membership, wants to see the alliance as an instrument of confrontation with the West.

During the summit, South Africa, India and Brazil signaled their intention to maintain close ties with traditional Western partners, underscoring the continued independence of the BRICS countries in prioritizing their own interests. The Five operate by consensus and tend to cooperate on certain aspects of different economies where interests coincide, rather than seeking to form a unilateral alliance. Brazilian President Luis da Silva even proposed during the summit to hold a meeting between the members of the BRICS association and the countries from the G7.

The summit once again proved that BRICS is an organization based on consensus, which requires all members to agree in making decisions. The leaders of the five held discussions behind closed doors for two days before finally reaching an agreement on expansion at the last stage of the summit. On August 24, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the official invitation of Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia to join the association. He said that the full membership of these countries in the BRICS will begin on January 1, 2024. Indonesia asked to postpone its membership, as it wanted to consult on this issue with its colleagues in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres attended the bloc’s expansion announcement, reflecting the growing influence of BRICS. He backed the five’s long-standing calls for reform of the UN Security Council, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. “Today’s global governance structures reflect yesterday’s world,” he said. The UN Secretary-General agrees that multilateral institutions must be reformed “to reflect today’s power and economic realities.”

Until recently, given the American influence in the Persian Gulf, the inclusion of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE in one economic or political organization was unthinkable. But the UAE was the first to resume diplomatic engagement with Iran, and Saudi Arabia and Iran reached a détente in March this year with the help of Chinese mediation.

President Ebrahim Raisi, who was present at the summit, called joining the BRICS “a strategic victory for Iran’s foreign policy.” The Islamic Republic, which owns the world’s second largest gas reserves and a quarter of the Middle East’s oil reserves, has sought BRICS membership to strengthen its economic and political ties with non-Western powers. Clearly, Iran was a difficult choice. Host South Africa, which has long ties to Tehran, like Russia and China, backed Iran’s inclusion, but it was not an easy decision for countries like India and Brazil that want to keep their leeway over the showdown between Washington and Beijing.

The Kingdom’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said that Riyadh is awaiting details from the BRICS group on the nature of membership and will make a decision accordingly. Saudi Arabia’s membership, along with Russia, Iran, the UAE and Brazil, will bring together the largest energy producers with the largest consumers in the developing world, giving the bloc enormous economic influence.

Since most of the world’s energy trade is done in dollars, the expansion increases the possibility of trading in alternative currencies. It will also mean that Russia and Saudi Arabia, who work closely together in OPEC+, will join each other in a new economic bloc. The two countries often coordinate oil production, which has in the past led to friction between Saudi Arabia and its ally the United States.

Argentina has the third largest economy in Latin America after Brazil and Mexico. Its BRICS supporters include India, Brazil’s largest trading partner, and China, with which Argentines have a notable increase in financial ties, which are of paramount importance in the country’s worst economic crisis in decades, with annual inflation exceeding 100%. Joining the alliance will strengthen important markets for Argentina and open up new ones, as well as provide additional funding opportunities through the BRICS New Development Bank. Egypt and Ethiopia have similar problems in the economy, which are interested in getting rid of American dependence and attracting investments from China and the Persian Gulf countries.

The decisions taken at the Johannesburg summit underscored the BRICS’s lack of desire to oppose itself politically to the US and the West. In the legal dimension, BRICS remains a voluntary union of states that do not have a legal union, charter, secretariat and mutual obligations. Alliance members are united by the desire to change the current global financial and governance system, making it more open, more diverse, less restrictive, including less dependent on the influence, politics and strength of the US dollar.