Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: India fully backs the expansion of BRICS (Brazil-RussiaIndia-China-South Africa) on the basis of consensus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the summit of the five-nation bloc, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
““After seven years, we can say BRICS will be ‘breaking barriers, revitalising economies, inspiring innovation, creating opportunities and shaping the future,” he said in his address at the plenary session of the summit.
He reminded the gathering of the heads of member states that India was the world’s fastestgrowing economy and it had always championed the cause of the Global South.
Need for consensus
PM Modi’s emphasis on the need to build a consensus was significant in view of China’s push to the expansion of BRICS to suit its strategic goals.
According to people familiar with the matter, the Indian side’s efforts are guided by the objective of including India’s “strategic partners” as new members.
It is ironic that China should now be playing secondfiddle to India in both the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS. India held the rotating chair in the SCO for a year most successfully till it ended recently, and dominated the agenda at the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg too.
So much so, that while PM pointed out that it will soon be a $5 trillion economy open to do business with the Global South and others, Chinese President Xi Jinping stayed away from the business session attended by the other three.
The growth engine
This was the first in-person summit of BRICS since 2019. Prime Minister Modi called India the growth engine of the world in an unabashed pitch to over 40 countries present, and the global audience via coverage of the ongoing three-day event.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin joined in virtually from Moscow. The country was represented by its highly experienced Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who pledged support to the Global South and Africa, in particular.
India is more credible in this matter, because of its timely help with vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic, while most others, including the rich Western countries, hoarded their own supplies.
Its treatment of the many additional invitees to the G20 Summit approaching its climax next month is also much appreciated by the Global South and indeed most of the G7 countries as well, including Japan and France.
Xi did attend the retreat for the heads of Government, but, reading between the lines, did not make any headway with China’s bid to expand the BRICS line-up immediately.
Bid for larger block
China wants to form a larger block to rival the domination of the ‘Global Commons’ regime, helmed by the US. However, previous attempts ranging from the post-colonial Non-Aligned Movement to the G15 have never been effective. A line-up of about 45 countries in BRICS is unlikely to do any better.
While India made headway in trading bilaterally in local currencies with a number of countries, China, by way of contrast, could not properly float its external Yuan as an exchange currency.
PM Modi in Johannesburg also called for the building of a “resilient supply chain”, a diplomatic code used by the Americans to reduce dependence on China.
