BRICS bloc includes 2 of world's biggest economies and 40% of its population but struggles to wield influence

When the BRICS summit gets underway in Johannesburg on Tuesday, expanding the group beyond its five current members — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — will be at the top of the agenda.

The member countries may have different economic and political systems but, more than a decade after the group was formed, are still bound by their collective desire to challenge U.S. dominance of global affairs. 

Around 40 countries have expressed interest in joining, according to BRICS officials, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Argentina.

Over the years, leaders of the BRICS group have all trumpeted their desire for a multipolar world, but there have been internal divisions within the economic block, and there appears to be some disagreement around how fast it should expand and which countries should be admitted. 

"There are certain nuances among members on the topic of enlargement," Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for Russia's Kremlin, said on a July 17 call with media.

He said the topic will be discussed at the upcoming summit, but Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be taking part in that discussion in person. 
 

Arrest warrant prevents Putin from attending

If Putin were to travel to South Africa, the country would be compelled to arrest him, as it is a signatory to the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Foreign Minister Seregey Lavrov will, however, be attending. 

Given Russia's financial and political isolation from the West, it is keen to shore up any relationships with countries that consider it an ally, say analysts. 

China is also eager to welcome new members, and the summit comes at a time when the world's second-largest economy is grappling with sluggish growth, and its relations with the U.S. continue to deteriorate. 

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Experts say all five of the countries — which make up about 40 per cent of the world's population and a quarter of its GDP — want more opportunities for trade and investment and a chance to extend their influence throughout the global south. 

"It's not possible to have a relationship between these five that is completely flawless," said Anuradha Chenoy, an adjunct professor of international relations at the Jindal Global University in India.

"There are strategic differences ... but there are also convergences."

Despite China's often tense relationship with India, which at times has played out along a 3,500 kilometre stretch of disputed border, all of the countries have common aims, including reducing the dominance of the U.S. dollar on world markets, Chenoy said over a Zoom from her home in Delhi.
 

Shifting goals

Reforming international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund has been one of the primary goals of the BRICS group. 

Russia initiated the group and hosted the first summit in 2009, which included leaders from China, Brazil and India. South Africa didn't join until the following year. At the end of the inaugural summit, the group released a statement calling for a "greater voice and representation in international financial institutions."

But since then, BRICS has shifted from what was primarily an economic group to a geopolitical one, says Ana Saggioro Garcia, an assistant professor in international relations and the co-ordinator for BRICS Policy Center in Rio De Janeiro.

She says that transition has been accelerated by the strained relations between China and U.S. and by Russia's war in Ukraine.  

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"BRICS has become a political coalition that has at its centre, the questioning of unipolarity or Western hegemony," Garcia said over WhatsApp on her way to catch a flight to Johannesburg.

In Johannesburg, she will take part in a series of meetings and presentations alongside the main summit and present research related to Chinese investment in Brazil and South Africa.

BRICS bank struggling 

Garcia says the BRICS group has repeatedly tried to challenge Western ideologies, which has appealed to countries that feel like they have been unfairly maligned or simply ignored, by the West. 

Among the candidates for accession to the group are Venezuela and Cuba, both of which face sanctions from the U.S., along with African nations Algeria and Ethiopia. 

The term "BRIC" was originally coined by Jim O'Neill, an economist from Goldman Sachs who used the word in 2001 to refer to the group of emerging economies. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, he criticized BRICS, saying the bloc of countries "never achieved anything since they first started meeting."
 

In 2015, the group created the New Development Bank (NDB), which has approved just over $40 billion Cdn in loans since its inception — significantly less than the $95 billion the World Bank handed out last year. 

But the NDB, which is headquartered in Shanghai, has been struggling since Russia launched its wide-scale invasion of Ukraine as sanctions against Russia make it more difficult and expensive to access international capital markets. 

The majority of the loans that it has handed out have been in U.S. dollars, which have become more valuable against emerging market currencies. This means that the debt countries have taken on has become more expensive to service. 

South Africa's finance minister recently told Reuters that one of the goals of BRICS is to increase the amount of lending it does in local currencies. 
 

Membership helps countries domestically

But measuring the success of BRICS depends on the benchmark being used, says Cristian Nitoiu, a lecturer in diplomacy and international government at the London campus of Loughborough University.

He says member countries may not have made a lot of headway when it comes to creating new viable financial institutions or eroding the dominance of the U.S. currency, but they have been able to use the BRICS group as a tool to promote their own interests at home and abroad. 

"It allows these countries domestically to say that, actually, we're trying to build something new in the world order," he said.

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It also shows the international community that the countries want to take on a leadership role, Nitoiu said. He says he's doubtful that BRICS will expand rapidly as it would erode the prestige of being part of an exclusive club. 

Any expansion of membership would force the group to settle on a fixed identity and decide where it stands on divisive political issues, particularly, Russia's war in Ukraine. 

While Russia may see new BRICS members as potential allies, South Africa is likely keen on bringing in countries that don't make the group appear to be a collection of "authoritarian-leaning states," Nitoiu said.

"South Africa sees itself as one of the biggest non-Western democracies."