EDITORIAL – NOV 2024 – BRICS: Building a new multipolar order

Anyone in doubt about the weakening of Western global influence need only take a glimpse at two simultaneous summits that took place at the end of last month.

Britain’s King Charles led the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Samoa.

Drawn from colonial history, this 56-nation club is routinely described as struggling for relevance – so much so that several key leaders failed to show up.

Sri Lanka’s new president Anura Kumara Dissanayake chose to stay away, as did Canada’s Justin Trudeau. Big-hitters like India’s Narendra Modi and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa opted instead to head to the southern Russian city of Kazan to be hosted by Vladimir Putin at the BRICS summit.

There is no nuanced interpretation here.

For many nations, the BRICS represents an evolving future world order.The Commonwealth is the past. Nor is there any question about the significance of the venue.

The leaders of the developing world accepted hospitality from a government that has torn up the international rule book and invaded a sovereign European nation, with high levels of bloodshed.

Significantly, those leaders attending included the secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.

With this summit, Putin believes he is proving that, far from being isolated by the Ukraine war, power is moving in his direction. He speaks about the group’s common values, vision of development, understanding of each other’s interests.

The BRICS was created two decades ago, in less polarised times, as a mechanism for emerging economies to take their place in the very American-run system that Russia and others plan to undermine.

The founders were Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa joined in 2010 and, more recently, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have signed up.

The groupcomprises nationsseen by the West as outright enemies, such asRussia and Iran, and also those viewed as allies such as India and Saudi Arabia. Turkey, a NATO member, is an applicant.

Comprising 45 per cent of the world’s population and 35 per cent of its economy, the BRICS is already a force, and Asia needs to deploy its long-held pragmatism to ensure it evolves in a positive way.

At many levels, the group represents the new multipolar world which is abandoning the concept of international blocs moulded around values and strategic agreements. Instead, nations pick and choose who they deal with and how.

Brazil, India and South Africa, for example, have no intention of joining an anti-Western alliance, while Russia and China are decades from being able to set up the necessary sophisticated international structures.  If they push their anti-democracy agenda too hard, they might see a rapid depletion in BRICS members.

BRICS disagreements on issues such as Gaza, Ukraine and climate change differ little from those within other international institutions. The European Union, ASEAN and NATO all carry a spectrum of opinions, but with proven mechanisms that keep their frameworks together.

The BRICS has yet to face such a test.

Putin’s immediate aim is to create an alternative international payments system that bypasses the US dollar and the Euro. Given the deep entrenchment of the dollar in the global economy, Putin has little chance of gaining any fast traction. 

While 95 per cent of bilateral Sino-Russian trade takes place in renminbi or roubles, 80 per cent of global trade transactions are invoiced in US dollars. The dollar also accounts for nearly 60 per cent of central banks reserves.

None of this means that the aim of Putin and his ally Xi Jinping should be ignored, and it is here that pressure from the Asia-Pacific should make itself felt.

The BRICS is evidence that there needs to be a faster democratisation of the world order. Small, incremental reforms could go a long way towards preventing the BRICS becoming yet another polarising anti-Western magnet.

Examples include scrapping the outdated rule that only a European can head the International Monetary Fund and only an American can lead the World Bank. Others must be allowed in.

While, in Samoa, the Commonwealth summit was headlined by tribal ceremony and arguments about historical slavery, in Russia, the BRICS discussed a future world order that is not underpinned by any one nation and its currency.

It is a demand for change that, for too long, had been ignored. Asia, with its long-held position of not taking sides, should ensure that the West finally begins to take notice.