It is commented with irony that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, motivated to advantage Moscow and inaugurate a new geopolitical era, ended up strengthening the West. However, another surprising development has received less attention from observers: the resurgence of the BRICS.
After mournfully celebrating the bloc’s 20th anniversary last year, member countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa seemed ready to go their separate ways.
The ambitions of China, whose GDP has grown 18 times since 2001, have created friction within the group. Under Narendra Modi, India began a pro-Western, Atlanticist turn with the entry into the Quad, the Washington-led dialogue group for containing Beijing. Inspired by Bolsonarista madness, Brazil tried to align itself with Trump’s United States and adopted violent anti-China rhetoric.
Tormented by a domestic crisis, South Africa has lost relevance both inside and outside Africa. Russia’s headlong plunge into the war could have imploded the bloc. But the opposite happened.
The explanations for the almost unanimous reaction of the BRICS to the conflict between the West and Russia go beyond the anti-imperialist solidarity and the frenetic articulations of the Kremlin to prevent its isolation.
The other members, starting with China and India, saw the BRICS as the most appropriate forum to strike a balance between unavoidable support for Moscow and preserving its integration with the global economy.
In the new world, characterized by fierce competition between superpowers, the bloc emerged as a safe haven for the old multilateralism. Not by chance, its next summit, scheduled for June, will be the most scrutinized in the last decade. For Brazil, which has been adrift since the failure of Bolsonar diplomacy, the return of the BRICS could accelerate its international reintegration.
For that, the priority must be to consolidate other agendas besides the delicate military question. At a time when India is suffering from a heat wave straight out of a science fiction book, deepening cooperation in the fight against the climate crisis, in addition to organizing around technology and industry hubs, seems like evidence.
A more ambitious and innovative approach would be to link BRICS development to other priority integration mechanisms for Brazil. In South America, the shared currency project presented by Fernando Haddad and Gabriel GalÃpolo in this Sheet dialogues with the agenda of reorganization of the financial system, China’s absolute priority in the era of supersanctions, and, at the same time, meets the challenge of strengthening Brazilian negotiating power vis-Ã -vis Eurasian trading partners.
The future of relations between Brazil and African countries, powerhouses of agribusiness, will also invariably be built around the relationship with China and India, which bring together more than 40% of humanity. The next decade should confirm that Beijing and New Delhi will be the only BRICS countries to fulfill the prophecy of Jim O’Neill, creator of the acronym, and achieve global power status.
It is up to Brazil to transform frustration into a new strategic agenda.
