BRICS seeks new world economic order

Western sanctions on Russia propel an alternative road

     The XIV BRICS Summit was held online on June 23. 2022, hosted by China.  BRICS is an intergovernmental economic-commercial association formed in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining in 2010.  The five countries represent 41% of the world’s population.  Their economies account for 24% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product and 16% of world commerce.

     An editorial by Global Times stresses BRICS’ alternative vision for a more just world economic order.  “From the very beginning, the BRICS countries had a broad vision, hoping to find a more inclusive and sustainable way for humans to work together. This is groundbreaking. It also shows that by adhering to openness, inclusiveness, and win-win cooperation, we can discover a wider world.”  The Global Times, founded in 2009, is an English-language newspaper located in Beijing.  In its own words, “the Global Times takes great pains to present facts and views that could help the readers better understand China,” in response to the understanding deficit with respect to China in the West.

     Global Times notes that the five BRICS countries have different political systems, historical cultures, and values, and there remain serious disputes among them.  However, they have been able to cooperate.  “What the BRICS countries are pursuing is not only to seek common ground while reserving differences, but also to seek common ground and resolve differences, as well as gradually dilute differences and disputes through mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation.”  As is evident, this is a perspective on international relations that is in contrast with that of the Western-centered world-economy. 

     Global Times asserts that BRICS has had remarkable achievements.  In 2021, the trade between China and the BRICS countries reached $490 billon dollars, a 39% increase from 2020, and double the $242 billion of 2016.  This increasing South-South trade has not only contributed to the economic and social development of the five countries, but also has driven the recovery of the world-economy from the COVID pandemic.

     The XIV Summit occurs in the context of the refusal of BRICS member nations to denounce Russia for its military operation in Ukraine, and their resistance to the U.S.-led campaign to impose sanctions on Russia.  China and India have increased their imports from Russia.  China is now the largest importer of Russian energy, and India is the largest importer of Russian defense equipment.

    The Global Times editorial maintains that BRICS, with its spirit of “openness, inclusiveness, and win-win cooperation,” provides a constructive alternative to the increasing instability, uncertainty, and insecurity of the international situation, which has been created in part by Washington’s orientation to treat economic questions as political and security issues. 

     Far from stimulating a denunciation of Russia, the imposition of sanctions on Russia has led to an intensification of South-South cooperation by the BRICS countries.  South-South cooperation was declared as a principle by the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1960s and developed in practice during the last two decades, with the intention of reducing the necessity of entering unequal and exploitative trade relations with the Western powers. The President of the International Forum of BRICS, Anand Purnima, maintained that “with the crisis in Ukraine, new alliances are forming, and the people are looking toward the East.”  She is convinced that “we are living in the creation of a new world order.”  Similarly, Paul Antonopoulos, independent geopolitical analyst publishing on the BRICS information portal, writes that the discussions at the Summit concerning the war in Ukraine stressed that “Western sanctions against Russia necessitate the immediate need to establish an alternative global economic model and order.”

      No new member has not been added to BRICS since South Africa in 2010.  But the intergovernmental association has a new orientation to expand.  At this year’s Summit, Argentinian President Alberto Fernández asked for the incorporation of Argentina in BRICS.  He described the intergovernmental association as “a platform with enormous capacities to discuss and implement an agenda for the future that would bring us to a better and more just time.”

     Reflecting the orientation to expand, BRICS foreign ministers were joined in a previous ministerial meeting by representatives of several governments, including Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.  Swaran Singh, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in India, believes that an expanded BRICS could function as an alternative to the G20, and it would overtake the G7 earlier than previously thought.

      But the important thing about BRICS is not its expanding size and economic growth, but the fact that the BRICS nations bring with them an alternative vision of a just international world order.  They are nations that have been colonies or semi-colonies of the Western powers in the past, and their political theories have been shaped by anti-colonial struggles.  They not only have an orientation to ascend; they also seek to transform unjust international structures and norms that generate global inequalities.  As the independent British political commentator Carlos Martínez writes in Global Times:

“All the BRICS member states have a historical background of being oppressed by imperialism and/or providing crucial assistance to the anti-colonial liberation struggles. They have all suffered under an imperialist world system which concentrated wealth and power in a handful of rich countries while marginalizing others. As such, anti-hegemonic ideas are deeply entrenched in each of these countries, and the work of the BRICS forum is to a considerable degree focused on joining hands to oppose hegemonism and support multilateralism and sovereign development.  This historical and political character makes BRICS profoundly different to Western-led blocs such as NATO.”

     As expressed by Cuban journalist Elson Concepción, “the proposal to extend BRICS to other nations constitutes a hope for the attaining of a multipolar world, necessary for eradicating today’s hegemonic situation, characterized by systems in which the salvation of a bank values more than the entire population affected by hunger.”  Similarly, Martínez writes, “With China actively supporting both the expansion of BRICS and the development of "BRICS Plus," the BRICS family is set to become an indispensable forum for the collective interests of developing and emerging countries.”

     During the past year, China’s chairmanship of BRICS has included a return to the BRICS+ paradigm, which had been on the back burner for several years.  As noted above, China launched an extended BRICS+ ministerial meeting that included representatives of several countries.  Jaroslav Lissovolik writes on the BRICS information portal that BRICS+ constitutes “an inclusive format for dialogue spanning all the main regions of the Global South.”  He further maintains, “With the return of the BRICS+ paradigm the BRICS is going from introvert to extrovert and its greater global ambition raises hopes across the wide expanses of the Global South of material changes in the global economic system.”

      In accordance with BRICS’ orientation to create, step-by-step, a new world economic order, China’s President Xi Jinping called upon the countries of BRICS “to unite against unilateral sanctions and their abuses” and to reject the mentality of the Cold War and confrontation among blocs.

     In a similar vein, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared, “Only on the basis of honest and mutually beneficial cooperation are we able to find the way our of the situation of crisis of the world-economy, which developed due to the poorly conceived and egoist actions of individual states.”  He maintained that the Western countries are trying to transfer to the world, through financial mechanisms, the consequences of their own macroeconomic errors. 

     The XIV BRICS Summit adopted a final declaration that affirmed the commitment of BRICS to strengthen multilateralism. It called upon the member countries to deepen cooperation, with the intention of creating “a fair competition market environment for international economic and trade cooperation.”  This carefully constructed phraseology reflects the fact that the advancing progressive nations today, in conceiving a strong state that plays a central role in planning and directing the national economy, envision a place for market competition.  They want fair competition, however, unencumbered by the political interests of the global powers.

     The Declaration also addressed the issue of the undemocratic structure of the UN Security Council.  It advocated greater attention to issues of development, including the implementation of the sustainable development agenda of 2030; and including financial support for and technology transfer to developing countries.  The declaration also called for the finalization and implementation of the convention against biochemical and chemical terrorism, with which the USA is not cooperating; and it endorsed the principles of a world free of nuclear weapons.

     BRICS is a unique forum that holds dozens of meetings prior to their annual summits, including meetings of think tanks, academics, corporate representatives, journalists, and government advisors.  This tradition has been continued in the current year of China’s chairmanship, with more than 70 conferences and events during the year, including the fields of political security, economy, trade, finance, sustainable development, and public health, as well as people-to-people and cultural exchanges. 

Xi Jinping

      In his keynote address to the Summit delivered via video link from Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged the member nations to continue the road of win-win cooperation and the quest for sustainable global development and peace.  He declared that "the historical trend of openness and development will not reverse course, and our shared desire to meet challenges together through cooperation will remain as strong as ever."

     Xi asserted that world peace and stability is the common cause of humanity; history teaches that hegemony and confrontation among power blocs bring only wars and conflicts.  With reference to Ukraine, he declared that "the Ukraine crisis is another wake-up call for all in the world.  It reminds us that blind faith in the so-called 'position of strength' and attempts to expand military alliances and seek one's own security at the expense of others will only land oneself in a security dilemma."

     Xi reaffirmed the Global Security Initiative, which he had recently proposed at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022 (see “China’s Xi Jinping has a better plan: But the Western media cannot see it, let alone report it,” April 26, 2022).  The initiative calls on all countries to commit to a vision of comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security, which includes taking the security concerns of all countries seriously and emphasizing the resolution of conflicts through dialogue.  He reiterated the alternative approach to security to which China is committed: 

"We in the international community should reject zero-sum games and jointly oppose hegemonism and power politics. We should build a new type of international relations based on mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation. We should be clear that we are a community in which all countries share a common stake, and we should see that the light of peace will reach all corners of the world,"  

     Xi stressed the importance of global economic and social development, and he reaffirmed the Global Development Initiative that he proposed in 2021 (see “Xi Jinping proposes Global Development Initiative: The President of China seeks win-win cooperation,” October 19, 2021). 

"Last year, I put forward the Global Development Initiative, and I called on all countries to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, forge united, equal, balanced and inclusive global development partnership, and promote cooperation in a wide range of areas such as poverty reduction, public health, education, digital connectivity and industrialization."

     Xi emphasized that productivity drives economic and social development.  Therefore, policies that disrupt productivity or impose barriers to the development of productivity ought to be avoided.  We need to be conscious of these lessons from human history and human experience in the current global crisis, in which industrial and supply chains are suffering from deliberate disruptions, commodity prices are high and fluctuating, inflation is increasing, the global financial market is in turmoil, and the global economic recovery from the pandemic is losing steam.

Vladimir Putin

     Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his message by videoconference to the BRICS Summit, asserted that “the disequilibrium in international relations has placed in relief the necessity of cooperation among the countries of BRICS and other nations that share their values.”  He called for the development of a multipolar world “based in the principles of equality, justice, and mutual respect.”  He stressed the need for a world commercial and financial system “free of barriers and restrictions imposed for political reasons.”   He noted that global commerce is snarled in disputes, which are increasingly resolved without taking into account the norms and principles of the World Trade Organization, resulting in the undermining of the entire financial and monetary system and the breaking of logistical and production networks. 

      Putin declared that the peak of food and energy prices is not a consequence of “the special military operation that Russia is carrying out to defend Donbass.”  He pointed out that the “sudden intensification of inflation did not occur yesterday; it is the result of many years of irresponsible macroeconomic policy of the G7 countries, of the uncontrolled emission [of money], and of the accumulation of debts without backing.”  He offered as an example the United States, which previously was an exporter of food, but now buys more than it sells, contributing to higher prices in world food markets.

Conclusion

      The reasons and the hopes behind the creation and development of BRICS as well as the insightful voices of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are denied to the peoples of the West, as the Western media, think tanks, academics, and politicians function as submissive servants to the interests of Western elites in a capitalist world-economy in full decadence.  The peoples are denied the opportunity to know the thinking of the organizations and leaders that are pointing humanity toward the necessary road in the context of sustained global structural crisis and its attendant confusion.  In this situation and historic moment, the responsibility of revolutionary intellectuals of the Western world is to see through the distortions and to seek to offer coherent explanations to our peoples, emancipating their thinking from the manipulations of powerful interests, thus liberating them to act decisively and with political intelligence in defense of themselves.

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