Why India is wary of China’s BRICS expansion push as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt – and others – seek to join
- Neither India nor Brazil want to lose influence in the bloc, with New Delhi concerned that enlargement would only grow Beijing’s strategic influence
- All current members share a desire to reform the international system, analysts say, but a new world order is mostly in Russia and China’s interest
Published: 9:30am, 5 Jul, 2023 Updated: 9:30am, 5 Jul, 2023
The leaders of South Africa, China, Brazil, Russia and India at the 2022 BRICS summit hosted by Beijing. Photo: Xinhua via AP
Not all members of the
bloc of major emerging economies are getting behind the push to expand it, with
particularly “wary” of the plan, analysts say, as doubt lingers about whether the grouping could become a counterweight to existing regional alliances.
When the BRICS members –
,
, India,
and
– gather for a leadership summit next month in Johannesburg, front runners to join the bloc will include
,
,
, the United Arab Emirates,
, Algeria,
and
.
A three-day meeting involving senior officials began on Tuesday, with the expansion proposal expected to be on the agenda.
Once seen as a loose association of diverse emerging economies, BRICS – aimed at promoting peace, security, development and cooperation – represents 43 per cent of the world’s population, 26 per cent of its land area and about 30 per cent of the global economy.
said last year it wanted the bloc to start working on
, but Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said last month that the process was still a “work in progress”, citing the need to deliberate on standards, criteria and procedures of what an expanded grouping would look like.
Oliver Stuenkel, an associate international-relations professor at Fundacao Getulio Vargas, a university in Brazil, said there was some concern within India as to “what extent an expansion is in New Delhi’s interest”.
“I think we’d have to wait and see if there’d be any significant movements in that direction,” Stuenkel said, noting that China was by far the strongest advocate of an enlarged BRICS, followed by Russia. Both India and Brazil, meanwhile, were “a bit wary of losing influence in a large grouping”, he added.
“The new members would largely join to be closer to China and not to Brazil or India,” Stuenkel said, adding that the bloc had already emerged as a counterweight to the West and an alternative model to the powerful
comprising Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
“Irrespective of whether there will be an expansion, the five BRICS countries [already] have significant influence in their respective regions,” Stuenkel said.
Anu Anwar, a fellow at Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said India’s recent
suggested it was an “outlier” in BRICS, which means it “makes sense” for other members to want to expand the bloc.
In recent times, Delhi has strengthened economic, defence and technological cooperation
,
,
and the
, and has played an active role in the
security grouping, particularly by producing vaccines for the Indo-Pacific region amid
.
The Quad – which also includes Australia, Japan and the US – was revived in recent years in response to China’s growing global influence.
Anwar said it was unlikely that BRICS could emerge as an alternative to the G7, as almost all countries in the first-world grouping were
members or in other forms of military alliances with the US.
“None of the BRICS members have a military alliance among themselves, and it is highly unlikely to form one in the near future,” Anwar said, adding that such an alliance was key to building a new world order.
“Although expanding members to a few middle powers and regional players could indeed make a significant shift in the global balance of power, it is unlikely to contribute to forming an alternative international order.”
Günther Maihold, deputy director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said creating a new world order was clearly in China and Russia’s interests.
“They are together fostering the enlargement of BRICS in order to legitimise this aspiration,” Maihold said, noting that Brazil, India and South Africa were more interested in maintaining the status quo.
Maihold said China’s interest in enlarging the group and “extending its clout” might be “counterproductive” as it could generate resistance from other BRICS members and the fairly informal group might be even more difficult to manage after expansion.
“[It might also] generate more internal rivalries,” Maihold said, referring not just to poor relations between China and India over
, but also the competition for greater regional and international influence.
Shirley Ze Yu, a senior practitioner fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Centre, said an enlarged BRICS would reflect the bloc’s strength and Beijing’s growing influence, as China alone represented two-thirds of the BRICS’ gross domestic product.
“As more members subscribe to a common multilateral framework, China will become the rule-setter,” Yu said, noting that any country occupying such a role would carry tremendous influence in the decades to come.
The New Development Bank, formerly the BRICS Development Bank, was established in 2015 with the aim of funding infrastructure developments in emerging economies. Photo: Reuters
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