Analysis: BRICS Set To Induct New Members in Russia

TaiwanPlus News

Leaders of BRICS member states will meet in Russia for a two-day summit. The grouping has billed itself as representing the Global South, but it hasn't delivered concrete policy solutions yet. To learn more, TaiwanPlus spoke to Eric Olander of the China-Global South Project.

Transcript

00:00What's the significance of the latest BRICS summit that's set to get underway in Russia's

00:04Kazan?

00:05Well, first and foremost, I think the fact that it's happening in the same seven-day

00:09week period as the IMF World Bank spring meetings provides a fascinating contrast now between

00:15an adolescent development finance organization and one that's in its 80th year.

00:21And so we're really going to see the contrast in how Global South countries and this coalition

00:26of countries at the BRICS have a very different vision for how to manage the global economic

00:32order than what we're going to hear out of Washington.

00:35So the key question now is going to be, can BRICS transition into something?

00:40Because again, this doesn't have a lot of shape to it.

00:44It's very heavy on symbolism.

00:47Several countries have expressed interest in formally joining BRICS.

00:50What will the expansion of BRICS mean for the grouping?

00:53We don't know if the expansion is going to be something good for BRICS because already

00:57we're starting to see some of the growing pains in BRICS.

01:00The BRICS could not issue a joint statement out of the foreign ministers' meetings on

01:04the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, in part because Ethiopia and Egypt could not

01:09agree on backing South Africa for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

01:16We've started to see more countries say, you know what, the BRICS is not for me.

01:19Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Indonesia have all said this isn't going to be for me.

01:24There's going to be a lot of evaluation from new members as to whether or not the BRICS

01:28becomes ideological, that is an anti-Western organization.

01:32And given the fact that China, Iran and Russia are all members of it, there is a good chance

01:37that it could become much more ideological.

01:40What topics do you expect BRICS to tackle going forward?

01:43So the most important thing right now and what the BRICS has served up until now is

01:48a venue for countries to have a collective frustration with the way that the U.S. and

01:54European international order is led.

01:57They don't like it.

01:58They don't like a dollar-led economy.

02:00They don't like a lot of what they perceive as to be gross hypocrisy from the West.

02:05That is, you know, monetary policy tightening in developing countries is the tonic that

02:11should be done, but at the same time, you know, printing money in U.S. and Europe and

02:15Japan was what they do, and they see constant hypocrisies in the way that the system is

02:20run and they feel that it is inherently unjust and unfair.

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