BRICS & New World Order Thread

[mossen]

BRICS is rather interesting because it appears to be heading down the path of the self-fulfilling prophecy. In practice, it’s little more than a flashy name and a social club for government leaders to meet at all those annual conferences, with little tangible impact to show for it.

Take away China from BRICS and what do you have? Yes, the US dominates the Western club but the disparity between the EU and the US is not as huge as between China and the other countries. China does not seem to like getting entangled into alliances, which is probably prudent. But it also means that there won't be a "BRICS NATO" type of organisation either.

And there isn't even a common financial architecture. The Indians and Brazilians have both said no and China itself seems hesitant to open up its capital account fully. China has almost fully caught up with the West technologically and in some areas went ahead of the West. But in terms of financial prowess, there is still very little competition for the US-backed financial system. And it's not clear to me that China even wants to change that, because the price paid would be loss of financial sovereignty.

The US govt cannot intervene to make the dollar cheaper, despite what Trump says, because its capital account must stay open: a precondition for having the world's reserve currency. China has so far not been willing to accept that, and without China, the entire project to replace the dollar collapses. So until China changes its mind, I will remain a BRICS skeptic.

 

[00CuriousObserver]

That Whoosh HSR is paying dividends

(yes ofc it's not just the railway)

 

[luminary]

BRICS is rather interesting because it appears to be heading down the path of the self-fulfilling prophecy. In practice, it’s little more than a flashy name and a social club for government leaders to meet at all those annual conferences, with little tangible impact to show for it. Contradictorily, however, this lack of concrete action seemingly has allowed people to project onto BRICS whatever they want it to be, actually further contributing to its inflated sense of significance.

It's called do nothing: win.

how we look at the situation might not be how these middle eastern rulers look at things.

Saudis are disappointing, let's just put it that way.

Indonesia was always the real prize for BRICS, we knew that years ago. The fantasy about Saudi is too good to be true, they are money with no human capital or future growth prospects. I'm surprised anyone would have entertained adding them to BRICS, especially as China hit Peak Oil. In the future China's relations with OPEC will sour as it weans off its oil dependency. Oil exporting countries are very sensitive to stuff like that, they can sense they're loosing whatever's left of their leverage as China exports more and more EVs to RoW.

In the future as ASEAN grows in importance, likely Indonesia + Thailand > India.

 

[ansy1968]

It's called do nothing: win.



Indonesia was always the real prize for BRICS.

You had to include Iran, for me both had the size, the population and technical ability to become a regional superpower.

 

[Biscuits]

Take away China from BRICS and what do you have? Yes, the US dominates the Western club but the disparity between the EU and the US is not as huge as between China and the other countries. China does not seem to like getting entangled into alliances, which is probably prudent. But it also means that there won't be a "BRICS NATO" type of organisation either.

And there isn't even a common financial architecture. The Indians and Brazilians have both said no and China itself seems hesitant to open up its capital account fully. China has almost fully caught up with the West technologically and in some areas went ahead of the West. But in terms of financial prowess, there is still very little competition for the US-backed financial system. And it's not clear to me that China even wants to change that, because the price paid would be loss of financial sovereignty.

The US govt cannot intervene to make the dollar cheaper, despite what Trump says, because its capital account must stay open: a precondition for having the world's reserve currency. China has so far not been willing to accept that, and without China, the entire project to replace the dollar collapses. So until China changes its mind, I will remain a BRICS skeptic.

China itself has no need to replace the dollar, it is arguably the greatest dollar beneficiary as it rose from like 15th largest economy to 1st since Deng's tenure because of the dollar.

Power is not measured in currency type but in production and tech.

If US wants to kick China out of using the dollar that will be about as effective as the Qing trying to kick Britain out of using Qing silver. US doesn't control what the dollars are used for once they leave US borders, and the ultimate tech advantage to impose whatever conditions by force favors China's side.

 

[Serb]

Take away China from BRICS and what do you have? Yes, the US dominates the Western club but the disparity between the EU and the US is not as huge as between China and the other countries. China does not seem to like getting entangled into alliances, which is probably prudent. But it also means that there won't be a "BRICS NATO" type of organisation either.

And there isn't even a common financial architecture. The Indians and Brazilians have both said no and China itself seems hesitant to open up its capital account fully. China has almost fully caught up with the West technologically and in some areas went ahead of the West. But in terms of financial prowess, there is still very little competition for the US-backed financial system. And it's not clear to me that China even wants to change that, because the price paid would be loss of financial sovereignty.

The US govt cannot intervene to make the dollar cheaper, despite what Trump says, because its capital account must stay open: a precondition for having the world's reserve currency. China has so far not been willing to accept that, and without China, the entire project to replace the dollar collapses. So until China changes its mind, I will remain a BRICS skeptic.

In the age of digital currencies, having some kind of a global transactional currency is becoming gradually obsolete, and gold is replacing the dollar and UST as the global reserve currency perfectly.

This is not some distant future, this is already happening, countries increasingly using their currencies and payment systems to trade with each other, introducing CBDCs slowly, and accumulating gold in the highest amounts in 50+ years.

The price of gold recently broke from Western artificial suppression thanks to this massive revival as the good old reserve asset.

The entire US financial hegemony system is obsolete. I went over this exact topic half a year ago: BRICS & New World Order Thread

BRICS in part is a good place for discussing it, but not only that, diplomacy, economic cooperation, and many other non-military areas.




Just to add here. What is the strongest area of the US financial global hegemony is not that it's hard to replace the dollar for trade, reserves, etc, for countries globally, but it's hard to find such a place where the oligarchs and elites from all over the world can go in and casually park their extracted value, from home countries, to remain safe, and to further grow indefinitely in some kind of a global pyramid scheme, that is never-ending and stopping yielding. You can hardly find another idiot superpower or great power, ever again, that would be willing to turbo-financialize and destroy their entire industrial economy in order to turn the country into a giant casino for domestic and foreign oligarchs and have their brightest people going into endless useless financial positions concerned with multiplying their wealth while people domestically also barely afford a home or own 10% of the stock market, and no capital is going into innovation and productive things but gets perma-voided...

 

[Biscuits]

In the age of digital currencies, having some kind of a global transactional currency is becoming gradually obsolete, and gold is replacing the dollar and UST as the global reserve currency perfectly.

This is not some distant future, this is already happening, countries increasingly using their currencies and payment systems to trade with each other, introducing CBDCs slowly, and accumulating gold in the highest amounts in 50+ years.

The price of gold recently broke from Western artificial suppression thanks to this massive revival as the good old reserve asset.

The entire US financial hegemony system is obsolete. I went over this exact topic half a year ago: BRICS & New World Order Thread

BRICS in part is a good place for discussing it, but not only that, diplomacy, economic cooperation, and many other non-military areas.



What is the strongest area of the US financial global hegemony is not that it's hard to replace the dollar for trade, reserves, etc, for countries globally, but it's hard to find such a place where the oligarchs and elites from all over the world can go in and casually park their extracted value, from home countries, to remain safe, and to further grow indefinitely in some kind of a global pyramid scheme, that is never-ending and stopping yielding.

You can hardly find another idiot superpower or great power, ever again, that would be willing to turbo-financialize and destroy their entire industrial economy in order to turn the country into a giant casino for domestic and foreign oligarchs and have their brightest people going into endless useless financial positions concerned with multiplying their wealth while people domestically also barely afford a home or own 10% of the stock market, and no capital is going into innovation and productive things but gets perma-voided like that.

Future China will simply keep using the dollar but as US becomes more weak, it will be pointless to keep those and China also has a big gold and yuan reserve alongside it. If (when) dollars get failed out wholly, China has already stated that they want an independent, international trade-only currency I.e. not domestic yuan to act as reserve.

Even if there is actual direct war between China and US, it's not like US can stop China from issuing more dollar denominated debt or from using their dollars. The current situation is already war like but China can do basically anything with the dollar financial system it wants.

 

[Serb]

Future China will simply keep using the dollar but as US becomes more weak, it will be pointless to keep those and China also has a big gold and yuan reserve alongside it. If (when) dollars get failed out wholly, China has already stated that they want an independent, international trade-only currency I.e. not domestic yuan to act as reserve.

Even if there is actual direct war between China and US, it's not like US can stop China from issuing more dollar denominated debt or from using their dollars. The current situation is already war like but China can do basically anything with the dollar financial system it wants.

One that relies on external intangible things (some financial systems, algorithms, NGOs, intelligence agencies, media, propaganda, soft power, social media, etc) for their global domination and survival will in 1000/1000 cases always lose to the one that is actually based on reality where all the tangible industrial might and economic activity is. Not only because you are internally weak in that first situation, as you invested in some bullshit and everywhere but your own crumbling infrastructure, but because of your external influence, that you gained by cheating poor people around the world like that, with good to hear manipulative BS, is also fleeting and shaky at best.

For example, other countries simply can't wake up tomorrow and decide to totally ignore China, from now on, which has more production > than the rest of the world combined. That is simply impossible. Whereas concerning the US, you simply de-dollarize your trade 100% in two years like Russia, or 50% like China, or suddenly one day wake up and decide to ban their NGOs or media like some random African country and their dictator, and poof, there is no more influence left for the US anymore. Whereas Chinese roads, hospitals, dams, and trains, are always there and Chinese exports of consumer and capital goods are always there and you can't live without them, so no country can work without China nowadays truly. People bringing all that US financial and media trickery "domination" as something positive are tricking themselves and don't have basic common sense. China is 10 levels beyond that clownish skewed bullshit philosophy.

What will happen when the US tries to prevent China from accessing dollars and dollar-denominated debt owed to them one day? Nothing the whole global financial system will crash, and 100% of countries will swiftly go to dump their dollars too, and the US would have to freeze the whole system until they are thoroughly beaten by China's 100 times greater industrial might. There would be no dollars, and the US, but the world would go on like nothing happened in a few years, done. China accepts that losing some of their reserves held in US bonds is a fair price to pay for keeping the US so weak all those years, and for crashing the whole of their financial system, and moreover, all the gold that they have, the unofficial highest reserves in the world, would skyrocket in value, offsetting that loss greatly too.

 

[Chevalier]

Future China will simply keep using the dollar but as US becomes more weak, it will be pointless to keep those and China also has a big gold and yuan reserve alongside it. If (when) dollars get failed out wholly, China has already stated that they want an independent, international trade-only currency I.e. not domestic yuan to act as reserve.

Even if there is actual direct war between China and US, it's not like US can stop China from issuing more dollar denominated debt or from using their dollars. The current situation is already war like but China can do basically anything with the dollar financial system it wants.

China has basically usurped the Federal Reserve when it comes to issuing US dollars and raising US denominated debt; the utility of China maintaining the US dollar system is to allow the weaker members of the global south to keep receiving a supply of US dollars so as to continue functioning in the global economic system, without the US preying upon them and their hard assets.

Out of the BRICS, China is the main heavyweight and at best an entity like India's only real purpose is to soak up anglo american bullets so they don't hit Chinese and Russian soldiers. Ditto with Iran. Indonesia may yet prove itself more than bullet sponge and do penance for its pogroms against Chinese communities in Indonesia.

 

[TK3600]

BRICS is rather interesting because it appears to be heading down the path of the self-fulfilling prophecy. In practice, it’s little more than a flashy name and a social club for government leaders to meet at all those annual conferences, with little tangible impact to show for it. Contradictorily, however, this lack of concrete action seemingly has allowed people to project onto BRICS whatever they want it to be, actually further contributing to its inflated sense of significance.

One remarkable thing that comes out of this phenomenon is that, due to the presence of China and Russia in the group, the West, as an outsider looking in, is unable to resist framing the group's actions through its Sinophobic and Russophobic perceptions. This means that the other countries are lumped together with China and Russia by association through the West's paranoia. Countries that had no interest at all in really siding with China and Russia in any major respects against the West, like Brazil, South Africa and even India, suddenly found themselves non-consensually grouped together with them by the West itself whenever it makes those "G7 vs BRICS" narrative comparisons, or frames BRICS as a "anti-Western bloc."

The self-promotion of BRICS by its member countries, I would say in part by their governments as a way to elevate their countries to the stature of China and Russia on the world stage, has lend it a particular exaggerated and overblown common perception in those countries for nationalistic reasonings. To give one superficial example, I've surprisingly frequently encountered Indian news coverage of the grouping use that "BRICS" logo where each letter has that country's flag, meaning that the Indian flag "I" is right in the middle, which I suspect is the reason why they use it. All this is meant to say that all the hype around BRICS, despite being frankly all talk and little action, has created a decent level of nationalistic pride from a large amount of the populations of the member countries. Therefore, whenever Western media blow up BRICS as some boogeyman against the West or when politicians like Trump openly threaten to tariff the group if they threaten US dollar hegemony, it actually can elicit a sense of indignation from those member countries.

In truth, whenever the West talks about BRICS, they're really often just talking about China and Russia, yet through this, the entire group gets painted with the same brush. This casts BRICS as more consequential than it is, and in a curious twist, it even fosters a certain solidarity among the countries in the group, including those like Brazil or South Africa that might not have otherwise seen much common ground with China and Russia. Those countries are not necessarily opposed to the West, but have a certain sense of high national pride - as the leading developing countries of the Global South - that gets hit as collateral damage whenever the West simple-mindedly attacks BRICS as a means to just attack China or Russia. This mirrors the history of previous 20th century Global South groupings like the NAM following Bandung, where the external reactions in lumping the group as some credible unit helped it bond together more than any internal actions did.

Through BRICS, China, for its part, also has gained a form of soft power connection with countries that have little historical or cultural connection to it, such as Brazil and South Africa. For example, consequentially, it's also provided the announcement stage for the recent attempt at Sino-Indian detente, which I doubt is a mere coincidence as such a move could be justified domestically by Modi through the BRICS mechanism as "being the bigger person for the sake of the group" and "to give Russia face as the host" in a way that ultranationalist sentiment in India might have been outraged by if conducted in a strictly bilateral context.

Through this, I'd say the foremost factor behind the development of the grouping in any relevant measures will not be primarily any internal dynamics but the external response from the West. In short, if the grouping actually ever gets anywhere materially, it will be principally because the West is effectively helping to create the very thing in actuality it views BRICS to be in its imagination.

It is a self fulfilimg prophecy. What if members find themselves at odds with western powers, because western politicians misinterpret the meaning of BRICS? Now they all have a set of common enemies. The members never intended for friendship, now find cooperation increasingly logical given same set of enemies. That is the magic of BRICS. It creates friends from nothing.

It is like religion. It may not be real, but once everyone believe it, it starts to be 'real'. Ignore the followers at your own peril. BRICS is the new religion that was never real, but is about to become real because some people believe it a certain way.