The BRICS summit, which recently concluded in Kazan from October 22 to 24, was the first meeting of the expanded group, which meant the attendance of a number of countries from the Global South wishing to join the bloc. Although its relevance is often ignored in Western analyses, the interest of many developing countries to join the bloc to navigate an uncertain world is indicative of its longevity. But despite its charm, there are deep internal tensions that threaten its effectiveness. Chief among them is the sword of Damocles hanging over BRICS due to ongoing geopolitical tensions between India and China despite a military withdrawal agreement announced on the eve of the summit.
As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized in his closing speech at the summit, he warned that the group was being perceived as ‘divisive’. The two countries have strategic differences over the bloc’s objectives. While India is content to have a seat at the table and reform the existing order, China, along with Russia, is increasingly positioning the BRICS as opponents of the world order established by the West and the United States.
To achieve its ambitions of overthrowing the United States as the sole global hegemon, China has sought to add members beyond its four original members (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and become the leader of a large bloc with significant economic power. weight. India and Brazil initially opposed China’s expansion of the BRICS group in 2017, fearing it would limit their influence. China has launched a diplomatic offensive to advertise the expanded BRICS as a counterweight to the G7 and tout itself as the voice of the global South, legitimizing the bloc’s expansion in 2023 as a necessary step toward improving the status of developing countries. After all, India, with its aspirations to woo the Global South, cannot afford to be seen as non-inclusive.
China also strongly believed that expansion would add economic vitality to the group after significant declines in growth rates in countries such as South Africa and Brazil, exacerbated by the pandemic. The recession has weakened ties with the bloc and led to a move away from cooperation. China has realized that it is not in its national interest to follow the weakening of BRICS, originally limited to five members, in the face of growing resistance from the Western world.
While India has had to admit that expansion dilutes its original objectives and makes it more difficult to reach a consensus decision, expansion of the group also presents new opportunities, especially given its important relationships with Iran and Saudi Arabia (which have not yet accepted the invitation). I brought it. . India failed to set criteria for membership, but eventually all countries welcomed were included in New Delhi’s recommendations. Past episodes suggest that different strategic outlooks for the bloc during future expansion will lead to differences between New Delhi and China over which countries to include.
All of the original BRICS members harbored decades-old grievances against an unjust US-led world order. India and China rejected post-war global governance institutions because they ignored economic growth and did not align with existing power configurations. As the West refuses to listen to the geopolitical realities of the 21st century, India and China have joined forces with other emerging countries to register their voices. Their participation in BRICS was underpinned by their mutual desire to improve material conditions in the Global South, increase local currency settlement, and reform the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organization. They have also become increasingly anxious about Washington’s unilateral imposition of sanctions to restrict trade and investment.
Nevertheless, there are strategic differences between the two countries over their approach to BRICS. Under Hu Jintao’s leadership, China was willing to keep a low profile and was reluctant to assert leadership of the group. But with the rise of Xi Jinping and concerns about US containment policies, Beijing wants to replace Western institutions with architecture. However, India was interested in reforming the existing order, playing a larger role for itself while distancing itself from Global South countries in Chinese projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
China, along with Russia, sees BRICS as a venue through which it can cooperate with other regional powers in the southern hemisphere and gradually limit Western influence. China is confident in collaborating with other emerging economies and building new international institutions rather than competing for hierarchical rights in a Western-led order. BRICS was also seen as a way for China to combat American policy toward China by deepening its institutional and economic links with the non-Western world. For example, China wants to integrate BRICS countries into the BRI infrastructure by providing development assistance more generously to non-G7 countries than to the West.
India shares nowhere near the revisionist enthusiasm for containing the West. New Delhi is highly satisfied with its high status, recognized and respected as a key node of emerging multipolarity. India has invested diplomatic capital to reform multilateral institutions, strengthen South-South cooperation, and address non-controversial issues such as terrorism, climate change, energy cooperation, and combating infectious diseases. India’s biggest complaint with the West is its exclusion from the UN Security Council, and it believes such reforms require support from BRICS. As part of its multilateral foreign policy, India’s membership in BRICS reminds the West of its long-cherished strategic autonomy and does not take cooperation for granted, while also ensuring that the group bases its identity on non-Western rather than anti-Western foundations. . – Western style.
Both India and China are concerned about American hegemony, but their strategies vary. While China seeks to accelerate America’s decline, India tends to be risk-averse in a world where America’s relative power is declining and the future of the international order is uncertain. From New Delhi’s perspective, the world is transitioning from a US-led unipolarity to a more multipolar world, and BRICS, despite its internal fissures and soft institutionalization, is a valuable arena for becoming a driving agent of this change.
On October 21, India and China agreed to deploy patrols along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to decouple and resolve issues arising in the region in 2020. Will tactical reconciliation herald a brighter future for India? Briggs? It would be wrong to read too much into the policy of border relaxation. While Indian elites advocate for a multipolar Asia and a multipolar world, we believe that China is increasing its ambitions for a unipolar Asia and a bipolar world, leading to intractable structural competition. A powerful country like China naturally wants and aims for regional hegemony. However, India has a firm commitment to independence, both historically and culturally. We will not tolerate a dependent relationship with China, which tilts the balance of power in Asia towards the Middle Kingdom. The differences between these two great powers are long and complex and will not be resolved in a hurry.
While some voices are urging India to withdraw from BRICS, New Delhi will continue to invest in the bloc to ensure that China does not monopolize the institutional space for global South cooperation. India will borrow from China’s strategic playbook and utilize BRICS as a necessary but lacking institutional mechanism to limit China’s hegemonic tendencies. This is exactly what China has tried to do against the United States. New Delhi’s intention to give up the bloc.
Moreover, India’s military and diplomatic support for Pakistan, India’s suspicions of China, challenges to its traditional leadership in South Asia, and worsening border disputes will likely lead to India’s continued participation in international organizations such as the BRICS mechanism and Russia. no see. – Use the India-China framework and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as tools of a soft balancing strategy to contain Beijing. The absence of mutual overlap on sensitive geopolitical issues between India and China will weaken the bloc’s influence internationally. Rather than achieving goals like dedollarization advocated by countries like China and Russia, BRICS will be limited to a series of poor performances focused on issues like climate change and public health.
The group will have to manage India-China tensions and contradictions in the coming years, but the debate within BRICS is unlikely to lead to collapse as it serves the national interests of both countries. India will leverage the bloc’s collective bargaining power to reform Western-dominated institutions without allowing them to degenerate into anti-Western organizations. Meanwhile, growing strategic competition with the United States will force China to prioritize BRICS. The most important goal of China’s foreign policy is to balance the United States. To this end, the United States is willing to share decision-making power with the weaker BRICS countries. This forum will allow China to compete with the United States without attracting too much negative attention.
Competition between the two will invariably reduce the group’s political cohesion to become an influential force in global affairs. The competition within BRICS to shape its future will be more intense than any collective response to Western hegemony. The rivalry between anti-Western states led by China and Russia and non-aligned states championed by India and Brazil will both be a major theme for BRICS as it seeks to save the global South. New Delhi and China have a national interest in maintaining investments in BRICS, but the gap between the bloc’s surging rhetoric and concrete action will still widen due to mutual antipathy and suspicion.
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