Brics, chapter 2 – 08/25/2023 – Demétrio Magnoli

Lula traveled to the Brics summit with a backpack full of utopias. Xi Jinping, on the other hand, carried a realistic strategic plan with him. The expansion of the block marks the victory of those who know what they want.

The Brazilian focused on the impossible: Chinese support for the inclusion of India, Brazil and South Africa in the UN Security Council (SC) and the creation of a “reference currency” for transactions between the Brics countries. He reaped only condescending words. China, India’s strategic and military rival, opposes CS reform. Five non-convertible currencies are unable to give birth to a global alternative to the dollar. Rather cruelly, the Kremlin spokesman himself explained that the magic coin idea does not fit into the foreseeable future.

The dreams shattered, Xi Jinping took charge of the agenda, criticized the “exclusive clubs” (read G7) and demanded that the doors of the Brics be opened. China aims to produce a modernized version of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which brought together more than 40 countries in its glory years, between the 1950s and 1960s.

The NAM was a geopolitical representation of the Third World in the early stages of the Cold War and a springboard for projecting influence from Nehru’s neutralist India. The Brics, in its chapter 2, is seen by China as a multilateral platform for challenging US leadership. Xi Jinping wants an assembly, not a select committee.

Russia and South Africa agree. During the summit, Putin took revenge on Prigojin, shooting down his private plane, and on General Surovikin, dismissing him as head of the Air Force. Engaged in an imperial war and increasingly dependent on China, Russia sees the expansion of the Brics as an instrument to obtain some diplomatic support. South Africa, on the other hand, nurtures the project of sponsoring the entry of several African countries, extending its regional influence.

The expansion, however, clashes with the interests of India and Brazil. Nehru’s India blocked Maoist China from entering the NAM. In the expanded Brics, the scenario is different: the Chinese voice will sound louder than all the others. For this reason, Modi’s government, which has just signed extensive military cooperation agreements with the US, resists the design of an anti-Western “Global South”.

There is no strategic rivalry between Brazil and China. However, the Chinese expansion project reduces Brazil’s specific weight in the bloc and tends to cause undesirable diplomatic friction with the US and Europe. Not by chance, Lula joined Modi in resisting the unrestricted opening of the Brics portal and, going against the PT wing intoxicated by anti-Americanism, declared that “we don’t want to be a counterpoint to the G7 or the G20”.

On the surface, the final deal to include six new members looks like a balanced compromise. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt entered through China and India; Iran, by the good offices of Russia; Argentina, through Brazil; Ethiopia, please South Africa. In fact, the decision is a clear Chinese triumph, as there is no way to draw a logical outline for the enlarged Brics.

Haddad tried, unsuccessfully, to define a boundary. Before the Business Forum, he preached the bloc’s unity around “common values” such as “freedom” and “national sovereignty”, in a passage intended to amuse the Chinese and Russian leaders. The G7 is the exclusive club of economic powers organized as liberal democracies. The G20 is the closed club of the 19 largest economies plus the European Union. Brics is an accidental forum inspired by a paper by a Goldman Sachs analyst. The arbitrary outline signaled by his name has no substitute: from now on, the block will grow at the whim of its main members.

Xi Jinping returns from Johannesburg with the prize he sought. Lula returns with an empty backpack.

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