On 22 August 2023, six new countries (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates) joined BRICS, an acronym for the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. First coined by Jim O’Neill in a 2001 study, BRIC (with South Africa joining in 2010)  is perceived more as an analytical category than an institutional upheaval from the non-West against the West’s domination. The birth of the BRICS was a response to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, which called for the reform of the international financial system anchored by the US dollar. In the geopolitical domain, an expanded BRICS, which welcomes emerging powers across Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, is poised to shape the trend towards multipolarity away from the United States’ hegemony. By doing so, it also aims to increase emerging powers’ room of manoeuvre in the quest for enhanced international status. The aspiration to create an alternative platform for South-South cooperation is expressed in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech at the press conference in Johannesburg, in which the expansion will “increase the representation and voice of developing countries in global governance” and “further strengthen the forces for world peace and development”.

While the BRICS’s vision appears abstract in terms, these new entries into BRICS carry realist pursuits. According to UAE Economy Minister Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, joining BRICS  “adds a lot to the UAE's multilateral support to the world”.  In turn, Saudi Arabia and UAE, the two oil powers, will render BRICS more energy-centric towards a “BRICS+ OPEC”. With over $1 trillion in sovereign wealth capital and OPEC’s third-biggest producer, the UAE will compliment the BRICS’ global economic silhouette well. Financially, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will strengthen the New Development Bank (NDB),  the BRICS’s financial infrastructure with a high credit rating. At a time when Western sanctions risk freezing 6.7% of NDB’s assets contributed by Russia, their membership can aid in securing new avenues of funding. 

Following the rapprochement of Saudi Arabia and Iran facilitated by China in March, Iran’s membership in BRICS will help it to break out of its diplomatic isolation against Western powers. According to President Ebrahim Raisi, Iran and China are “friends in difficult situations”. Iran is finalising its inclusion in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an economic and security bloc led by China and Russia. Besides, Iran works closely with Russia and India to develop the North-South Corridor trading network which links the Indian Ocean to the Caspian Sea. From 2021 to 2022, Iran’s non-oil exports to South Africa increased 500 percent. These initiatives demonstrate Iran’s engagement with BRICS countries to develop its economy against US sanctions. Along with Iran, Russia will also benefit from an enlarged BRICS to reinforce its struggle against the Western alliance bloc such as NATO's expansion amidst the war in Ukraine.

Argentina’s membership can be interpreted as President Alberto Fernández’s efforts to deal with the ongoing fiscal crisis. Earlier, Buenos Aires settled its $2.7 billion loan to the International Monetary Fund in yuan by a currency swap deal with China’s central bank.  As the country suffers from shrinking US dollar reserves, the BRICS’s NDB can offer further financial support. 

The BRICS expansion is increasingly considered Sino-centric as the new alignment appears to privilege China’s interests. The inclusion of Egypt and Ethiopia, for example, will consolidate China’s BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) as the two countries were already included in the project. Indeed, considering the overall geographical spread of new members, a more inclusive BRICS will link crucial trading routes across continents. This extension is nicely aligned with BRI, which will reinforce China’s push for its grand strategy and project its political clout in a larger geopolitical sphere. In addition to BRI, BRICS expansion parallels the Western-dominated Group of Seven(G7), counterbalancing its relative influence. The spill-over effect of China’s ever-growing prominence in global affairs will certainly alarm the US and intensify Sino-American competition. What may further instigate US discontentment is Iran’s incorporation into the BRICS, which will complicate existing tensions. 

The Expansion of BRICS: A Competitor to the G7? 

Despite this, it is too complex to suggest that the BRICS’ expansion represents a direct clash between the West and the East, or that it simply aims to overturn the US-led liberal order. 

Firstly, the seeming decline of liberalism relates more to the crisis in the Western world itself. From Trump’s ascension to champion “America First” to Brexit, Western-led liberal internationalism has been eroding from within. The withdrawal of the Western powers is happening at the same time as the emergence of non-Western powers, exemplified by the Chinese model of authoritarian capitalism. Despite Biden’s call for the restoration of American leadership in global governance, its declining share of global trade flows and continued economic protectionism limits its ability to resume the same position of leadership it once had.

Secondly, underlying the BRICS’ optimistic multilateralism lies internal contradictions. While the BRICS may present growing pluralism in the international order, this so-called “age of hybridity” is also accompanied by fragmentation. The China-Russia alliance is not built on purely fertile soil, with China’s BRI eating into Russia’s immediate domains of interest in Central Asia.  China’s developmental programme competes with Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union in gripping access to Central Asian resources. China and India, the two largest economic bodies in BRICS, also have a relationship underscored by conflict and nationalism. After Historically clashing in 1962 on the Tibetan border, China and India’s territorial disputes have regularly flared up, peaking in the 2020 Galwan Valley incident. India has also sought to counter China’s BRI, especially the infrastructural project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with the Bay of Bengal Initiative to secure its stake in regional development. As a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), India checks China’s prowess with the US, Australia, and Japan by forming a containment bloc in the Indo-Pacific region. 

The BRICS’ extension indeed builds a platform to echo more non-Western voices, but it does not establish a challenging alternative to the Western system. This is because the BRICS countries actually flourish under the auspices of the existing liberal system and are still reliant on it. Compared to NATO, the BRICS has neither common organisational features such as a formal treaty nor  security guarantees as an alliance bound by military commitment. Unlike G7, BRICS’s main component states are not closely aligned on their aims and values. Except for Iran, the new members do not necessarily take an anti-American stance and even have been hesitant in BRICS’ adversarial trendline against the US. Notably, Saudi Arabia is still under the US’s security umbrella by hosting American troops and purchasing American weaponry. Similarly, Brazil and Argentina have important, albeit complex, relationships with the US, and rely heavily upon the IMF. Indeed, both leading Argentinian presidential candidates Patricia Bullrich and Javier Milei, a far-right Argentinian economist, opposed the idea of joining BRICS. Milei, in particular, suggested that his country would be aligned with Israel and the United States if he won the election in October. 

Concluding Remarks 

One may regard the expansion of BRICS as a Chinese diplomatic success and a testimony to its growing influence in the Global South. However, it is unlikely that BRICS will become a challenge to the liberal world order established by the United States after the Second World War due to the lack of integrity and the diverse interests of BRICS member states.

In this sense, an enlarged BRICS has both prospects and limitations. Adding new members means that diversification may further dilute the coherence unless they realise their promise for the shared goal. To meet today’s global challenges, it is wiser to abandon the dichotomous thinking of the West versus the non-West, and understand that a core driving force behind this expansion is an interest in updated global governance for the new international system, as well as more democratic decision making . In Jim O’Neil’s words, “What the world really needs is a resurrected G20, which already includes all the same key players…it remains the best forum for addressing truly global issues such as economic growth, international trade, climate change, pandemic prevention, and so on”.