[BRICS Summiteers]
The two-day 15th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa starting tomorrow (Aug 23) and is a featured event in the busy international calender for many reasons. One of its members, Russia, has been embroiled in a conflict with Ukraine over territory habited by Russian-speaking people who have been fighting a secessionist insurgency with Kyiv for a couple of decades now and which fact, Moscow asserts, strengthens its claims on the said Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Russia has territorially gained what it wanted and is now sitting tight, letting the Ukrainian forces bash their heads against the 20 km-wide mined and otherwise fortified defensive barrier Russia has consolidated since late 2022. But President Vladimir Putin will be absent because there is a warrant out for his arrest for crimes against humanity (in Ukraine) that South Africa, as host and a signatory to the law, can in theory enforce. The Russian leader apparently doesn’t care to risk an incident and will send his usually imperturbable foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in his stead.
The Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Lula in short, is an anomaly in that he is an avowed socialist at a time when Leftist leaders the world over are becoming extinct! He replaced the rightwing Jair Bolsonaro, being re-elected but this time because of his more tempered socialist rhetoric. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains ensconced in India for the same reasons that other conservative politicians have found traction elsewhere in the world — there being a general disbelief among voters that the state is the solution to country’s problems. (It is also the reason why the I.N.D.I.A bloc in Indian domestic politics is facing so much skepticism. Just curious, but can a political party call itself INDIA under the law, because commercial entities are barred from using ‘India’ in their company or product names? Strangely, the BJP-led NDA government has not sought a ruling from the Election Commission on this inappropriate name-issue by a gaggle of opposition parties because it is clear the name is a political ploy at confusing the voter — Can voting for INDIA be against India? Someone in Rahul Gandhi’s coterie apparently first thought of using India as acronym and then came up with the convoluted words to fit it! Clever but is it legal?)
Other than the BRICS Five, 50 other leaders, are expected to attend the events “as friends of BRICS”, with discussion being directed by the host country towards considering the subject — “BRICS and Africa”, and how the organization can help African countries in their economic betterment and development programmes.
The main issue for the summiteers to sort out is whether to expand BRICS into, what many conceive it — with China in the van, as a counterweight to the Western bloc of nations led by the United States with its own First World views of reality. Many countries — 40 so far, have shown an interest in joining, with 23 of them even submitting formal applications. The sudden spurt in BRICS’s popularity may be because there’s the potential of its emerging as a major economic and trading bloc, and who wants to be left out of that? Already, BRICS accounts for 42% of the world’s population and 23% of the global wealth (GDP). Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s ambassador-at-large for Asia and the BRICS, speculated that one of the chief reasons for the popular demand to join is because “countries are being forced to take sides” on the Russo-Ukrainian war. “Countries in the South don’t want to be told who to support, how to behave and how to conduct their sovereign affairs”, said Sooklal. “They are strong enough now to assert their respective positions.”
In other words, BRICS and BRICS enthusiasts in the Global South and the non-West international community at large, are coming round formally to adopting India’s attitude to the ongoing conflict best expressed by the external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, in 2022 at the Globsec Forum in Bratislava. ‘Europe has to grow out of the mindset’, he declared, ‘that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.’ This is, perhaps, the statement with the greatest clarity that Jaishankar has issued during his tenure so far as foreign minister. Such plain speaking, as I have always advocated, is exactly what is needed when dealing with the US and the European states. Because there’s no ambiguity, there’s no likelihood of wrong interpretation and misunderstanding, and so India for the first time won respect and diplomatic leverage, and the more obvious ways of pressuring New Delhi ceased. It has left the country free to pursue its interests as it sees fit whether in purchasing energy or armaments from Russia and, in the bargain, winning Moscow’s appreciation. The global village saw what happened and decided what’s good for India is good for them as well!
This is the first instance actually of India showing leadership and staking a substantive position other countries have come to rally around.
Regarding the expansion of BRICS, which China is pushing for, India has every reason to be suspicious. New Delhi has not opposed an expanded BRICS but is insisting on fleshing out in detail the admission rules and conditions, and the metrics to decide an aspirant member’s observer status and, in time, full membership. For instance, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and UAE all want to join BRICS. Having Riyadh and UAE, with whom India has established warm relations, in the outfit may be no bad thing. Except, these two Arab states are getting close to China, and also subsidising Pakistan’s financial profligacy and propping Islamabad up, perhaps, to ensure their supposed access to its ‘Islamic bomb’. Prospectively, a Saudi-UAE-China group would be a major headache for India and even pose a strategic problem. As would an Islamic bloc, should relations turn sour, of Turkey-Saudi-UAE supported expediently by China. India has to be mindful of such possibilities and propose a semi-permanent cadre of ‘observer status’ countries for consideration to full membership in, say, ten years time — a sufficient period to judge how these states behave and, more importantly, how and what BRICS issues they side with China on.
It always makes sense to be apprehensive of Beijing. China has time and again used bilateral and multilateral fora to talk around Indian interests, reduce them, and make monkeys out of Indian leaders, starting with Jawaharlal Nehru. Modi too burned his fingers by trusting President Xi Jinping and imbibing a little too much of the Wuhan and the Mahabalipuram spirits than was safe.
The other major issue that will be bandied about is the de-dollarisation of the global economy, which is a strategically sensible thing to realize. Freeing the Indian economy from the grasp of the US dollar would endow Indian foreign policy with more latitude than it has enjoyed to-date, and help to conserve the country’s hard currency reserves. New Delhi is already setting up channels for trade in local currencies, such as the rupee-dirham transactions for trading in energy with the UAE, and hoping that de-dollarised trade can be regularised with other friendly countries in the neighbourhood as well. Intra-BRICS trade in local currencies or in currency other than dollars would give this alternative trading scheme a huge kick-start. And the recently established New Bank — a BRICS institution, would be the facilitator. But again the proverbial ‘fly in the ointment’ is China. The Asian Devevelopment Bank with majority Chinese equity is an economic creature of Beijing. One would hate to see this happen with the New Bank. Here the monied Arab states would offer a real alternative to China’s capitalisation of this bank. May be ‘observer’ status, with promise of conversion to full BRICS membership, for Saudi Arabia and UAE can be bartered for seed funding of this bank.
More strategically, Modi should hold private and personal discussions with Lavrov, Lula, and Cyril Ramaphosa with securitising BRIS (Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa) with a view to blunting China’s hegemomic agenda. In my 2015 book — Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet), I made the case for such an informal military cooperation arrangement that will create a quite extraordinary air-naval security net covering the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans (Indian peninsula-Simonstown-Rio de Janeiro) entirely free of Western involvement, expectations and encumbrance. Time to push, this more potent, ‘secret’ agenda! Because Modi has to bear in mind that China is India’s main and only credible threat. This is the real value add-on.
Whatever happens in Johannesburg, Modi and his team better prepare to play hardball and not allow Beijing to roll over Indian interests. Again.
Security Wise 
This BRICS grouping is utter nonsense. The term itself was coined by a Britisher.
There are only two groups with power in the contemporary world. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council because each one of them possess veto power.
The other is NATO because it’s a military alliance and attack on any one will invite the combined wrath of NATO
All other groups in the world are of no practical relevance.
Email from V Siddhartha, former science & technology adviser to Defence Minister
Mon, 21 Aug at 6:56 pm
Re: “Just curious, but can a political party call itself INDIA under the law, because commercial entities are barred from using ‘India’ in their company or product names? ”
>> Could be tested against the (extant) provisions of “Passing Off” under our Trade Marks law. But then, which political party/formation is not expert at “passing off” !
Re: “Someone in Rahul Gandhi’s coterie apparently first thought of using India as acronym and then came up with the convoluted words to fit it! Clever but is it legal?)”
>> Jairam Ramesh
Re: “…. air-naval security net covering the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans (Indian peninsula-Simonstown-Rio de Janeiro) entirely free of Western involvement”
>> Your very “informality” provides the yanks an “informal” pressure-window on Brasilia and Johannesburg to thwart that.
VS
BRICS doesn’t have any significance whatever little relevance it had disappeared after the India China border clash in Mid 2020.
Mr. Karnad in your profile this is mentioned;
Foreign Fellow at the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies.
Could you please mention which year and how long was your tenure at the aforementioned?
“More strategically, Modi should hold private and personal discussions with Lavrov, Lula, and Cyril Ramaphosa with securitising BRIS.”
Lavrov will straight away mention it to Putin and in no time Xi will be aware of this impractical idea.
Gupta brothers from India defrauded South African treasury of Billions and ran away ala Mehul Chowksi. They are wanted economic fugitives in South Africa.
Indian Pharmaceutical companies are already under the scanner in the African continent for supplying substandard medicines resulting in large number of deaths.
below article is somewhat contradicting you your view
https://www.rt.com/india/581593-india-brics-west-world/
Professor,
As long as the US and Russia are at loggerheads, and India is still a middle power, BRIS may not have strong legs. Russia has become too dependent on China – apparently its military supply of semiconductors is now coming from China. There’s also too much oil and gas dependence for exports.
But given the multilateral combinations being formed these days, maybe this one too can be explored for no one knows how the world will change in the medium term. It’s an alphabet soup currently!
Also, With the next US elections around the corner, candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy seem like total realists and many republicans are buying his foreign policy goals. That could change US Russia dynamics if more realist policies are adopted (even if he’s not elected). And US India dynamics.
Despite their annual gatherings, the BRICS haven’t achieved anything notable together.
They created a multilateral lender, the New Development Bank, in 2015. But it has approved only $33 billion of projects in its entire history. The World Bank, by contrast, committed $104 billion in its 2022 fiscal year alone.
The fault line between India and China, which fought a small war in the Himalayas in 2020, is one reason the BRICS club has done so little. India sees the People’s Republic as its most dangerous threat.
It is also hard to view China, now the world’s second-largest economy, as a voice for the Global South. Besides, most developing countries don’t want to be forced to choose sides in a showdown with the United States.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further compromised the BRICS. Indeed, Vladimir Putin is not attending this year’s summit because South Africa would be required to arrest him, as it is a member of the International Criminal Court which has issued a warrant against the Russian President.
China is keen to expand the club to new members. But it’s not obvious what a bigger group would do. Given how hard it has been for even five nations to agree, it’s fanciful to suppose a larger and more disparate gathering would achieve anything more than complain about American hegemony.
A few excerpts from the following interesting composition;
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/brics-are-better-off-disbanding-than-expanding-2023-07-31/
Indian companies continue to use yuan to pay for 10 percent of the country’s Russian oil supplies—and New Delhi remains silent on the issue.
Of the $117 billion worth of goods traded between the two countries last year, 87 percent were Chinese exports
India’s $50 billion pharmaceutical industry is dependent on bulk drugs and intermediate goods from China—essential raw materials to manufacture finished products for domestic consumption and export.
Despite its efforts in the past three years, India has not found alternative sources to China for these materials. So critical are these links that Modi has no way of reducing New Delhi’s reliance on Beijing.
Differences in messaging between the two countries have caused some embarrassment for India.
When Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in South Africa in July, the Chinese readout referred to an “important consensus” reached between Modi and Xi at last year’s G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
India never mentioned such a consensus. Three days after Beijing’s July statement, New Delhi had to admit that Modi approached Xi in Bali not only to exchange pleasantries but also to discuss the need to stabilize bilateral relations. (The two leaders did not have a formal bilateral meeting in Bali.)
This admission likely didn’t play well with Modi’s domestic audience because it drove home the starkness of India’s empty quiver when it comes to targeting China.
Russia has stopped providing many supplies due to large pending payments, of over $3 billion, further impairing India’s military. (Around 70 percent of India’s army arsenal, including tanks and aircraft, are of Russian origin.)
Moscow doesn’t want to be paid in Indian currency, while New Delhi is unable to find ways to pay in a currency that doesn’t violate G-7 sanctions against Russia.
As a result, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has ruled out even a limited offensive option against China, essentially tying the military down with defensive deployment on the border to prevent further loss of territory.
Jaishankar’s ministry has never summoned a Chinese diplomat to issue a demarche on any of the issues, not even after the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers.
This has further signaled New Delhi’s weakness. China does not initiate talks on the border situation and often takes weeks to grant Indian requests for such discussions.
The lack of a Chinese ambassador to India for the last 10 months has not helped matters.
After attending a think tank event in Beijing last month, former Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran—a longtime China hand—reported that he found no willingness on China’s part to return to the border’s prevailing status quo from before the 2020 Ladakh clashes.
All the above passages have been taken from the following article, which is a must read for delusional folks, who believe that India has been successful in countering China;
@Lunghaad,
When you evaluate an Indian response to China, you have to take into account capabilities of the two sides and the objectives China may have had by taking an offensive stance against India. Before Doklam, India was quite keen on i proving relations with China. After Doklam and Galwan, India is firmly an adversary. Neither has China persuaded India from allying with the West, nor has it cowed down India into submission. Nor has it prevented India from growing at a significant pace while its own economy has suffered. From a strategic perspective, China has blundered.
Now you might point to all small evidences about how India has ‘lost’ territory, how India is still dependent on China etc., but look at the big picture. You have a China that only has Russia amongst the major powers as its ‘friend’ or ‘ally’. It is at loggerheads with the U.S., India, Australia, Japan, Philipines, and most SE Asian countries are wary of it, and look to the U.S. and India now for balance. Chinese belligerence has created the AUKUS, solidified the Quad, developed an alliance of Japan, Korea and the U.S. for preventing tech transfers to China and so on and so forth.
If you look at Indian actions – India’s rocket force has come up in short order, Indian border infrastructure is rapidly advancing, military grade communication infrastructure has advanced rapidly since Galwan, India has banned over 200 Chinese apps, including tik tok, has prevented strategic Chinese investments in India (e.g., BYD), has closed the Indian market through the RCEP, has led to the Indian navy being given the highest investments for modernisation, has improved ISR capabilities on the Chinese border etc.etc.etc.
Of the seven intrusion points in Ladakh, five have been resolved and two are still under negotiations. If you read Foreign Policy magazine, yes, you will get A VIEW of China India relations. However, even though the managing editor of that magazine is of Indian origin, his views tilt liberal. I too read and watch these sources. But that is a data point. Examine the truth for yourself. India is not doing so badly for itself, given the capability gaps. Yes, China may have gained some small territory here and there and may have created buffer zones on the Indian side, but what has it gained strategically? Nothing!
However, by not going belligerent, India has bought itself time to improve its woeful military capabilities, has kept its political options open in the future as it plays the game with US, Russia and China, and continues to keep a peaceful atmosphere so that it can continue to grow economically, the true source of strength.
This is the reality. Lot of nincompoops of type arboreal, who I call NOTAs, jump up and down crying from tree tops in these columns, about how India should do this or do that. But if you examine how India has handled China, it has done quite well. The Western media will never highlight this and the NOTAs will never get it. But if you examine things calmly and sanely, India is not doing too badly wrt China. And with all the economic trouble that China is currently is in, the way it has handled the rest of the world, will likely lead it to pay a high price in the coming years.
@Amit- “ From a strategic perspective, China has blundered.’
No it hasn’t on the contrary China showed the whole world that India is just a big mouth hot air balloon. It encroached upon vast tracts of Indian land and has refused to step back. Slap on India’s face period.
“You have a China that only has Russia amongst the major powers as its ‘friend’ or ‘ally’. “
No permanent friends or Allie’s similarly no permanent enemies in life as well as in Geopolitics. For example- US and China are at loggerheads. Just look at the trade figure between the two.
“Chinese belligerence has created the AUKUS, solidified the Quad”
All theoretical groupings cannot confront China militarily.
“China may have gained some small territory here and there and may have created buffer zones on the Indian side, but what has it gained strategically? Nothing!”
Proved to the world that India is just a paper tiger nothing else.
“how India has handled China, it has done quite well.”
Yeah by making a royal joke of itself when the country’s P.M. has given clean chit to China by saying “naa koii ghussa……”
“And with all the economic trouble that China is currently is in, the way it has handled the rest of the world, will likely lead it to pay a high price in the coming years.”
More hype than reality. Chinese tourists are still the biggest outbound travelers. The whole world is still buying stuff from China. No point in doing useless “vidhwaa villap”
@Amit- “Lot of nincompoops of type arboreal, who I call NOTAs”
You call them names. They also call you names. Take a chilled beer and relax. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
BRICS is an irrelevant grouping.
Anyone remember this;
https://samvadaworld.com/featured/the-end-of-saarc/
The last SAARC summit, which is supposed to be a biennial event, was hosted by Nepal in 2014.
Pakistan was to host the summit in 2016, but it was stalled after India refused to participate following the terror attack in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based terrorists.
India destroyed SAARC. India is sabotaging SCO and BRICS. China should kick India out of BRICS and SCO. Indian elites were British boot lickers to maintain their positions similarly now the Indian establishment comprise of Yankee worshipers.
The office of China’s Ambassador to India has been empty for the longest time since 1980. It has been 292 days (as on 10 August 2023) since the previous Ambassador left office.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/china-goes-10-months-without-envoy-in-india-ahead-of-key-meetings/article67176830.ece
This shows how seriously China takes India 😆
India is the most hypocritical country on the Planet. It swears by Gandhi who in reality was a sex crazy paedophile imposed on Indian masses by the British elites to keep Indian revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Azad etc. in check.
India spent decades crying hoarse about Pakistani terrorism. Does the phrase false flag attacks ring a bell 🤔
Indian NSA is on record saying they would destabilize Pakistan. BLA and other organizations which are terrorists as per Pakistani establishment are openly funded by Indian intelligence agencies.
So why play the victim card all the time? Pakistan is treated as a pariah state by India.
China actually is being too nice. In reality India needs to be kicked out of SCO and BRICS both.
Gujaratis are crazy about Yankeeland. Let Modi go and join NATO
Ayyashuddin@ — Don’t you have some begging to do with your Arab and Western Donors. Don’t worry about India worry about your nation.
@SJ- Talk about yourself. We get enough money from Arabs, Yankees as well as Chinese.
You start worrying about yourself. How to migrate illegally to the West.
Asked if people in Ladakh believe the Centre’s claim that no land has been taken, Rahul said locals say the Chinese army has intruded and taken over their grazing land.
“They can’t go there. They all are clearly saying this. The Prime Minister said not an inch of land was taken but that is not the truth. You can ask anybody. They will tell you,” Rahul said.
Prime Minister Modi issued a statement soon after the confrontation that no one had intruded into Indian territory.
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/ladakh-no-takers-for-pm-modis-claims-that-china-has-not-snatched-land-says-rahul-gandhi/cid/1960388
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/pm-modi-plenary-session-brics-summit-updates-8905616/
So what about a free trade pact between BRICS?
You take hefty secret political donations from Indian businessmen and expect the world to open to Indian goods and services while keeping your own domestic tariff’s unreasonably high to deter competition from foreign entities.