In the following important article, Dr. Jenny Clegg sets out and responds to eight key criticisms and questions concerning the BRICS+ cooperation mechanism – its nature, significance and role -and argues that, in representing a significant challenge to US hegemony, it contributes to the movement towards a multipolar world.
Noting that, the rise of the BRICS+ has divided left opinion, Jenny writes that: “Critics see, at best, a collection of disorderly capitalist states which, tied to the dollar and lacking political coherence, are in no position to form a real alternative to the existing global order and, in fact, do not even aspire to do so.” She acknowledges that: “The significance of BRICS+ should not be exaggerated: they are in no position to serve as a counterweight to the advanced capitalist states.”
However, “BRICS+ is, in fact, the driver of global growth. In the last 10 years, China and India alone comprised 47 per cent of world growth; now, according to the IMF, the average growth of the BRICS+ this year will be close to 4 per cent while the sluggish G7 barely makes 1 per cent.”
And whilst “talk of dedollarisation has indeed been overhyped… the group is developing a sanctions-proof cross-border payments system and has seen a notable increase in intra-BRICS trading in local currencies, greatly reducing losses in exchange rate charges and currency fluctuations. With BRICS+ partners now added to the scheme, potentially 30-plus per cent of global trade could begin to transition away from using the dollar.”
Turning to the accusation that “the larger BRICS+ members are just pursuing sub-imperialist and neo-imperialist agendas,” whilst acknowledging that “ambitions of national aggrandisement are at play among some of the more powerful BRICS members”, she argues that, “BRICS+ has emerged amidst a rise in diplomatic activity within the developing regions and should not be divorced from this wider momentum in the Global South. To assume that smaller developing countries are passively succumbing to subordinate positions under regional hegemons is frankly patronising.
“From the proposals of Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley on tackling debt to the former colonised states’ demands for reparations at the recent Commonwealth Summit to the Caribbean Islands’ proposals for a fund to cover the damage caused by extreme climate events, to name but a few, smaller developing countries are asserting their own agency.”
Jenny also argues that the BRICS+ approach is dual: developing cooperative economic arrangements step by step directed at strengthening the development of member states, so shifting the overall material economic and political balance to build pressure on the World Bank, IMF and WTO to become more inclusive.
“To dismiss this incremental approach as global social democracy, diluting true socialist opposition to imperialism, is to fail to come to terms with the reality of unequal world power so as to develop a concrete strategy for change.”
Taking issue with those who assail BRICS+ for a supposed lack of sufficient anti-imperialist rigour, Jenny responds that:
“It is in its resistance to taking sides in the US’s new cold war that BRICS+ is of such immense significance – a brake on the US-led path of war. Each member brings its own perspective – non-aligned, multi-aligned, anti-imperialist — to the organisation, but no matter how cautious and tentative their individual foreign policies may be, these are all to be valued as ways of exercising independence against the US new cold war.
“It is in the diversity of the BRICS+ that its strength lies. This is not about pro- and anti-Western blocs – the real choice is between peaceful coexistence and the road to a third world war.”
Answering those who say that BRICS+ is too riven by disputes among its members to build a peaceful world, she draws attention to the recent agreement, on the eve of the BRICS+ summit in Kazan, between key members China and India on the management of their border dispute.
She concludes, in words that have only acquired even more cogency and urgency with US President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariff rates on the BRICS+ nations should they attempt to develop alternatives to dollar hegemony:
Measuring BRICS+ against preconceived notions of socialism or even anti-imperialism is abstract and utopian, absent of any strategy to end US hegemony and Western dominance. It is in removing these obstacles that the door to socialist advance can be opened.
Taking BRICS+ out of context to knock them down is to wave a false red flag in the face of the very real dangers of war. Now, as Donald Trump brings new international challenges, and with liberal internationalism beyond resuscitation, it is imperative for the left to look South, not least to BRICS+ with its offer of a viable progressive project.
Jenny is an anti-war activist and China specialist. The author of ‘China’s Global Strategy: Towards a multipolar world’ (published by Pluto Press), she is also a member of our advisory group. Her article was first published by the Morning Star.
THE Brics+ Kazan summit in Russia stood out as a pillar of stability in an increasingly volatile and dangerous world. With wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, pushing the UN system to breakdown, it kept the spirit of multilateralism alive.
Gathering leaders and representatives from 36 countries, the meeting was the first for the enlarged grouping, which last year added UAE, Ethiopia, Egypt and Iran to the existing Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
The rise of the Brics+ has divided left opinion. Supporters claim it to be transformative, tipping the global balance against the G7 and spelling the end of US hegemony as bearers of a new international financial order and a more peaceful world.
Critics see, at best, a collection of disorderly capitalist states which, tied to the dollar and lacking political coherence, are in no position to form a real alternative to the existing global order and, in fact, do not even aspire to do so.
The significance of Brics+ should not be exaggerated: they are in no position to serve as a counterweight to the advanced capitalist states.
Brics+ comprises 33 per cent of world GDP (purchasing power parity), overtaking the G7 at 29 per cent. Nevertheless, given their members’ much lower per capita income and technological advancement, they remain far weaker.
What should not be missed here, though, is that Brics+ is, in fact, the driver of global growth. In the last 10 years, China and India alone comprised 47 per cent of world growth; now, according to the IMF, the average growth of the Brics+ this year will be close to 4 per cent while the sluggish G7 barely makes 1 per cent.
The adoption of partnerships for countries at Kazan as a stage to full membership also considerably amplifies Brics+ influence. The as-yet unconfirmed list of 13 partners includes Nigeria and Algeria, making all five of Africa’s largest economies part of the Brics+ zone while bringing in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to extend Brics+ influence across the whole of Asia, a continent containing the world’s fastest-growing regions.
The Brics+ real significance lies in the future: in 10 to 15 years, China may become the leading world economic power; India, number three; new partner Indonesia, number five; with other new partners Malaysia, Nigeria and Thailand moving up the top 20.
Right now, with its reach into the different developing continents opening up new corridors of trade and communication, Brics+ is well placed to shape the multipolar future.
Predictions of Brics+ replacing the dollar-based global financial system are no more than a pipe dream.
Brics came together originally for economic reasons: to share opportunities for development, trade and investment, their large populations offering great mutual potential. Following the West’s freeze on Russian assets after its invasion of Ukraine, concerns about reducing reliance on the US dollar also became a priority.
Talk of dedollarisation has indeed been overhyped. The Brics+ aim as a collective is to end dollar hegemony — not to replace the dollar system but to reduce dependence on it. To this end, the group is developing a sanctions-proof cross-border payments system and has seen a notable increase in intra-Brics trading in local currencies, greatly reducing losses in exchange rate charges and currency fluctuations.
With Brics+ partners now added to the scheme, potentially 30-plus per cent of global trade could begin to transition away from using the dollar. Such a shift could spark the sell-off of US dollars on a large scale.
The fact is that much of world’s future development will not take place under US economic hegemony. Put another way, the Brics+ trajectory is towards gradually breaking the US monopoly of financial power.
The larger Brics+ members are just pursuing subimperialist and neoimperialist agendas.
As a “motley collection of nations led either by autocratic regimes or by governments still tied heavily to the interests of the imperialist bloc,” as one critic has put it, it is hardly surprising that supporting the Brics should be seen as problematic for the left.
However, some on the left misrepresent the multipolarity now opening up as a new round of inter-imperialist rivalry driven by the Brics powers’ pursuit of regional hegemony.
For sure, individually, ambitions of national aggrandisement are at play among some of the more powerful Brics members. However, their national interests are, of course, hampered by imperialism.
They cannot succeed on their own: to create space for economic survival and advance their independence, they need to act together. In this co-operation, the larger Brics states set limits to each other’s individual ambitions.
At the same time, Brics+ has emerged amidst a rise in diplomatic activity within the developing regions and should not be divorced from this wider momentum in the global South. To assume that smaller developing countries are passively succumbing to subordinate positions under regional hegemons is frankly patronising.
From the proposals of Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley on tackling debt to the former colonised states’ demands for reparations at the recent Commonwealth Summit to the Caribbean Islands proposals for a fund to cover the damage caused by extreme climate events, to name but a few, smaller developing countries are asserting their own agency.
The involvement of new members and partners now lends weight to the Brics+ claim to be paving the way for the rise of the global South.
Brics+ members are part of the capitalist system — they have no interest in fundamental transformation, they only seek reform.
Although now overtaken by the Brics+ in terms of GDP (PPP) and with only 10 per cent of the world population to the Brics+ 45 per cent, the G7 still controls the leading financial institutions of the World Bank and IMF. Since its foundation, the goal of the Brics has been to redress this imbalance through reform.
Critics have claimed that all the Brics want from reform, as capitalist states themselves, is a better deal from the world capitalist economy.
True, given that their trade is largely carried out in dollars, investment is handled in dollars, reserves are held in dollars, and debt is denominated in dollars, for Brics to seek a complete break with the international financial system would be economic suicide.
Rather than overturning the whole financial architecture — indeed an unrealistic ambition — the Brics+ approach is dual: developing co-operative economic arrangements step by step directed at strengthening the development of member states, so shifting the overall material economic and political balance to build pressure on the World Bank, IMF and WTO to become more inclusive.
To dismiss this incremental approach as global social democracy, diluting true socialist opposition to imperialism, is to fail to come to terms with the reality of unequal world power so as to develop a concrete strategy for change.
Brics+ is just a talking shop, too diverse to take effective action for peace.
Brics+ members greatly differ in economic size, political systems, culture and history, with disparities in wealth and income, and are geographically dispersed.
However, what unites them is their support for the UN. This collective anchoring is all the more meaningful at a time when the UN is reduced to tatters as a result of Israel’s unfettered aggression.
On the Ukraine war, the Kazan declaration states that “all states should act consistently with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter in their entirety and interrelation.”
It supports an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, with Israeli withdrawal, and an end to its violence in the West Bank, warning also of the dangers of wider escalation.
Yet there is no call for real action against the genocidal Israel. So where, sceptics may well ask, is the anti-imperialism? The key question to answer is rather why the international system as a whole is failing: this is because it is being wrecked by the US pursuit of hegemony through division.
To preserve US dominance, US President Joe Biden has sought to wrench the world into two opposing blocs — “democracies versus the autocracies” — using the war in Ukraine as well as support for Israel’s self-defence to force others to choose sides.
Constructing a fake narrative of a Russia-China-Iran-North Korea alliance, the aim has been to split Europe off from the Eurasian continent and cement divisions in the Middle East and east Asia. US supremacy would then be ensured over China, the perceived arch-rival.
It is in its resistance to taking sides in the US’s new cold war that Brics+ is of such immense significance — a brake on the US-led path of war. Each member brings its own perspective — non-aligned, multi-aligned, anti-imperialist — to the organisation, but no matter how cautious and tentative their individual foreign policies may be, these are all to be valued as ways of exercising independence against the US new cold war.
The Kazan summit has clearly shown up the failings of Biden’s foreign policy: the failure to isolate Russia, the weakening of the sanctions weapon, and now the likely inclusion of more US allies, Nato-member Turkey as well as Thailand alongside the UAE, a signatory of the Abraham Accords, with invitations also extending to Cuba and Vietnam to lend greater socialist weight — all defying the US “democracy versus autocracy” narrative.
It is in the diversity of the Brics+ that its strength lies. This is not about pro — and anti-Western blocs — the real choice is between peaceful coexistence and the road to a third world war.
Brics+ is too riven by disputes among members to build a peaceful world.
As competing states themselves, with their ruling elites at loggerheads — not least India and China — left critics argue that the Brics can only add to the world’s frictions, conflicts, and war.
However, on the sidelines of the summit came news of an India-China agreement on managing their border dispute. Evidently, by taking each other’s interests into account, Brics+ has the potential to ease bilateral tensions as members come to see the benefits, especially of economic co-operation.
The India-China news was another blow to the US. With Biden investing so much in the Indo-Pacific strategy to contain China, it now remains to be seen how the Quad — the US, India, Australia and Japan — goes forward.
Why are other smaller developing countries drawn towards Brics+?
Brics+ offers a degree of stability vital for smaller developing states. The Kazan declaration further stands by their right to development, including “special and differential treatment” in the WTO and “common but differentiated responsibility” in addressing climate change.
Asked why the attraction of Brics+, an Ethiopian delegate responded: “Because they don’t tell us what to do.” The Brics New Development Bank, he pointed out, helped his government implement its own development plans; the IMF, on the other hand, undermined government policies, demanding an end to state subsidies which were benefiting low-income families.
Brics+ practices of non-interference and respect for each other’s interests are conducive to consensus-building. China’s huge presence in Brics+ appears to make it highly unequal.
True, China is the key actor. However, the decisions it carries out are made by consensus. This equality in decision-making is what differentiates Brics+ from an imperialist bloc.
If not an anti-Western or anti-imperialist alliance, what is Brics+?
Brics+, in its diversity, is an organisation of and within the global South. Essentially, it is a long-term project for a co-ordinated multipolarity.
It serves as a forum for emerging economies to co-ordinate and secure their future development goals.
It offers a platform for members to leverage their own rise, manoeuvring among existing and emerging poles, not least to diversify their sources of energy and minerals as wars threaten supply lines. Accommodating these multi-alignment strategies, Brics+ strength also lies in the flexibility to adjust to shifts in an uncertain international situation.
Rather than elevating their own interests above others, members look to each other for stability in volatile times, learning to adjust to each other’s rise, finding ways to manage their competition and support each others’ development, despite the tensions between them, within the UN frame.
The problem with the UN is that it just doesn’t seem possible to implement its agreements. This is not simply about the abuse of the veto among the five permanent members of the United Nations security council — the problem is rooted in the global imbalance of economic and political power underlying the UN frame.
In this sense, by standing up for the right of countries to choose their own development path beyond the “one-size-fits-all” imposition and by expanding development opportunities through collaboration and co-operation, Brics+ are, bit by bit, rebuilding multilateralism on a fairer material basis.
As it does so, also by expanding its dialogue to partners, Brics+ provides space for diverse voices across the non-Western world to share concerns and ambitions. The broadening of the Kazan agenda to cover new areas, such as AI, green development and biotechnology, opens up a wider debate about the future and the kind of multipolarity Brics+ and partners want.
Through think tanks, study groups and increasing people-to-people exchange, Brics+ countries are getting to know each other better sans the lens of Western racist stereotypes. In this sense, Brics+ is a process shaping the multipolar pattern of a future not dominated by the West.
Beyond the purview of the West, the Brics+ zone is developing mutual understanding so as to create new narratives of modernity drawn from a sharing of the various deep-rooted civilisations.
The West has claimed for centuries to show to the rest their future. Brics+ holds the promise of change not so much by replacing the existing international order as by de-Westernising or decolonising it.
And a final word for the critics.
The stability of China, with its vast market, investment resources and supply of affordable technological products, is crucial to the success of Brics+, and China’s stability, in turn, rests on the success of its socialist project.
Measuring Brics+ against preconceived notions of socialism or even anti-imperialism is abstract and utopian, absent of any strategy to end US hegemony and Western dominance. It is in removing these obstacles that the door to socialist advance can be opened.
Taking Brics+ out of context to knock them down is to wave a false red flag in the face of the very real dangers of war. Now, as Donald Trump brings new international challenges, and with liberal internationalism beyond resuscitation, it is imperative for the left to look South, not least to Brics+ with its offer of a viable progressive project.
