How China plans to use BRICS to become a global leader

BRICS may sound like an increasingly tired acronym for some observers in India, but across the border in China, it is hard to overstate its importance. China has always taken BRICS more seriously than the grouping’s other members — Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa.

In China, there are dedicated BRICS think-tanks and institutes that churn out dozens of policy papers every year. India may have proposed the idea for the BRICS New Development Bank, but China has in some sense taken ownership of the Shanghai-based institution.

In fact, some in Beijing believe that it was an eye on the upcoming BRICS summit that prompted China to seek a quick end to the two-and-a-half-month-long standoff at Doklam that was resolved on Monday.

Beijing had publicly insisted on a unilateral withdrawal by India as a precondition for any talks. But quietly, both sides in Delhi and Beijing kept the channels open and negotiated a disengagement, which was made possible on Monday with India withdrawing troops and China removing its bulldozers and road construction equipment.

BRICS has assumed even greater importance in recent months as China crafts a more prominent global leadership role for itself, with Beijing viewing it as one of the several key vehicles to push its view of a different world order. This effort has taken on urgency since the election of Donald Trump, with the view that an inward-turning United States will yield new opportunities for China. Hence Xi Jinping’s visit to Davos and his striking speech in defence of globalisation. His pet One Belt, One Road initiative is another part of this push.

Xi is expected to deliver a similar message to the developing world when he flags off the BRICS Summit with a keynote speech on September 4 in the picturesque coastal city of Xiamen. Foreign minister Wang Yi outlined the crux of China’s BRICS agenda on August 30. “Unilateralism is on the rise. We have spoken in a united voice on upholding multilateralism and in one voice on major issues on a timely basis, which has increased our voice in international affairs,” he said. 

Wang pointed out Xi would also chair in Xiamen “the biggest ever” BRICS business forum and that China had this past year, as BRICS chair, held 84 meetings in finance, trade, technology, science and other areas, including 22 ministerial-level meetings, underlining the importance it was according to the summit.

Xi will also chair a “dialogue of emerging markets and developing countries” in Xiamen with five invited non-BRICS countries. China is now floating the idea of what it calls “BRICS Plus” — a loose framework to expand the grouping by associating it informally with other countries to more forcefully push certain global issues. In the past, it was customary for BRICS countries as part of regular regional outreach to invite countries from their neighbourhood to their summits, as India did with South Asian countries in Goa last year and Brazil did with Latin American nations.

Wang, however, said China was following a slightly different and broader approach. It has invited a broader group to Xiamen, including Mexico, Egypt, Guinea, Tajikistan, and Thailand. “BRICS cooperation has gone far beyond our five countries,” he argued, “and taken on global significance. So we have put forward BRICS Plus for broader partnerships.”

It remains to be seen if other BRICS countries will share China’s aspiration to widen the grouping — not necessarily in terms of membership but by association — and whether they can agree on criteria to do. China, however, is set to push that message in Xiamen.