BRICS becoming too big to be coherent: Expert explains what it means for India

Brics’ rapid expansion has given the grouping greater geopolitical weight but also made consensus-building increasingly difficult, says Amitendu Palit, Senior Research Fellow & Research Lead (Trade & Economic Policy) at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. In an interview, Palit discusses whether Brics can effectively represent the Global South, the challenge of divergent interests among its members, the risk of competing economic blocs led by the US and China, and what India needs to do to maximise the gains from its expanding network of trade agreements.

Edited Excerpts: 

Brics has positioned itself as the voice of the Global South. Has it managed to push agendas that concern the Global South, or has it become a platform for Western powers to negotiate their own interests?

What is actually a voice for the Global South? When we had the G20 summit in India three years ago, there was a view that the Global South needs to be championed. That was a summit which saw the entry of Africa and the African Union as members. We had South Africa being complemented by this presence. But when we look at the concerns of the Global South, the concerns of the Global South are not different from global concerns.

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Sustainability is as much a concern for the Global South as it is for the rest of the world—critical minerals, natural resource management, so on and so forth. The issue with the Global South is that the Global South experiences these concerns and their day-to-day living in a manner which is much more critical, much more pervasive and perhaps more iniquitous than it is in the other parts of the world.

But then how does one go about addressing this? There are forums, global forums where you would want these to be addressed. There are UN forums, including powerful forums like the WTO.

But in the WTO, we know that the mechanics and the process of the WTO are such that it operates on the principle of consensus, and no move can happen unless and until that consensus is reached.

As a result, in the WTO, we have seen a number of plurilateral initiatives shaping parallelly. Interestingly, in a large number of these plurilateral initiatives, you would actually see a lot of Brics members involved as a part of the group.

India is a bit of an outlier in this regard. Most of the plurilateral initiatives in the WTO, at least the notable ones like e-commerce and investment, have had India as a discordant actor in that. Now the question is that if the rules for the Global South are coming up, what are we expecting the Brics to do?

When you look at the subject that is uppermost in the minds of people today—AI. There are no global regulations on AI. Now the question is how serious should the Global South be in regulating AI? And if it wants to regulate AI, what are the good rules that it should have?

Nobody in the Global South has actually proposed this. We had in the India AI Summit an emphasis upon responsible, safe, trusted, and ethical use of AI, which is very well taken. But what are the rules that should ensure that? We haven’t had that coming up till now.

We don’t even have a domestic AI regulatory compact in India. The United States clearly doesn’t want to have AI rules because if it has AI rules in other parts of the world, its own big tech will find it very difficult.

China has, on the other hand, come up with a set of rules, where already eight BRICS members have locked in. It’s also mentioned a separate organisation on data management and cross-border data flows.

I’m not saying that these are good rules or bad rules, these are perfect rules or imperfect rules, but the question is, is there something to be put on the table for discussion?

Now, where else is this happening? It’s not happening in the G20, it’s not happening in the multilateral forums in the UN, and it’s not happening in the WTO. But the Brics is at least talking about something which can be packaged as an agenda for the Global South.

And I don’t really think India can walk out of that because if India says that we don’t agree to these rules, then India will be striking an extremely imbalanced chord within the Brics.

And let’s not forget the fact that next year the Brics chairmanship is with China, right? So I think there is a steady progression in this.

China has handled the Brics rather well. And whether the Brics reflects the Global South or not is a different question, because I think eventually the Global South is not a homogeneous entity. It is an ideational concept. But China is close to claiming that it is championing an agenda for the Global South through the Brics in the areas that require most urgent attention.

Is BRICS becoming too big to be coherent and too difficult to build consensus on any topic, given the conflicting interests among countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, India and China?

Certainly it is. But at the same time, it is the size of the Brics which creates its appeal. Let’s say, for example, if we go back some four years ago, the Brics wasn’t this big. There were countries which wanted to become members of the Brics, but we had a fairly small group.

Now, over the last one to two years, we have seen the size expanding rapidly, especially from Southeast Asia—Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and several other countries. From the Middle East, there are countries which have come in. We’ll very soon see more countries from Africa and Latin America join.

I think the core interest of these countries is that Brics is a club where there is more benefit that you visualise in joining rather than being left out of it as a developing country in the world.

And that is something which is actually motivating these countries to come closer to the Brics, because now you realise also as a developing country that you don’t have that negotiating flexibility with the United States or with Europe.

And the United States and Europe and a large number of OECD countries of the world are actually beginning to move into the space where they can command the space according to the rules that they create.

There are many OECD practices which are coming up in the world, especially in the area of digital trade, sustainability, green shipping, so on and so forth.

The Global South is by and large out of this. Digital trade has not engaged the Global South the way it has engaged the other part of the world.

There is a question of global inequity becoming much, much more large and sharp, and perhaps there is this thought on the part of a large number of countries that being a member of the Brics gives you visibility and gives you a space to actually be heard, which is no longer possible today either at the UN or at the WTO.

I think there is that strategic visibility appeal of the Brics, which is becoming important for a large number of countries in the world.

This is the first Brics Summit after the West Asia war, with Iran, Saudi Arabia and other countries having conflicting positions. How do you see consensus-building in the backdrop of the crisis?

It’s a very difficult situation, honestly, because I think when we had the last Brics summit, we didn’t have the Iran War at that time.

Today we don’t just have the Iran War; we also have a situation where other Middle Eastern countries are in an adversarial position with Iran.

Now, this is really a very awkward situation for India to handle as the chair of the Brics Summit, because I think what India will need to do, and it is obviously trying to do that, is to send a signal to the members who are locked in conflict with each other that, look, you have to lock on to an agenda which is above the current conflict that you are engaged in, and that agenda is long-term.

Now, the good side of that persuasion is that if countries which are currently engaged in a conflict with each other are actually able to subscribe to an agenda like that, it means there is some scope for dialogue, room for compromise in their space, and there might be a possibility that their current animosity may reduce over time.

But on the other hand, there is also this chance that all of this might be very fragile; all of this might be very superficial.

Just because no country wants to convey a signal that we are uncommitted to the idea of Brics, they might agree to lock on to a broader Brics agenda without actually meaning much.

And that is where the question of the credibility of the bloc comes in. That is where the question of the credibility of the leadership comes in.

So at some stage, I think this is where I repeatedly want to emphasise that who is actually leading the Brics is going to become a very important question as we look at the future of this bloc moving forward from here.

Are we heading towards competing economic blocs in the future—one centred around China and one around the US—or is the world economy too interconnected to split into two blocs?

I think both of what you say are true. There is clear evidence showing that trade and investments globally are beginning to concentrate more among groups of countries that are geopolitically closer aligned to each other. That is clear from the work that the WTO and other agencies have done.

But at the same time, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the United States-China trade relationship still remains the largest trade relationship in the world, yet there are two of the most contesting global actors.

So I think both of the suppositions that you bring to the table are true. This is something that is going to be the feature of the world economy as we go forward.

The critical question to me over here is that at some stage the US-China rivalry will spill into a space where there will be a very strong push for allegiance to rules and allegiance to institutions.

There will be institutions which eventually will come under the contest that US and China are experiencing. This could be some of the multilateral institutions that we right now have in existence.

There would be other forms of regulation globally being proposed and suggested, which will enter into a domain of US-China contest.

Now, this is going to be the critical point: over there, when that contest comes, how much of it is going to get split, and how much of it is going to condense? And I don’t exclude the possibility of a third outcome here. We might actually get to see a non-US, non-China third group of coalition rulemaking blocs emerging.

But who is going to lead that bloc?

That is a very good question. And as of now, if we look at some existing examples, let’s say if you look at a trade framework like the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, CPTPP.

There are these economies, and there are these countries whom I would broadly describe as progressive middle powers of the world, which includes, on one hand, countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, and Korea, but on the other hand also includes countries like India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and so on and so forth.

Now, if we come out of the US-China turf, there is a huge turf in terms of global trade and in terms of global business and commerce, in which these countries are engaged in a random ad hoc manner.

They would actually want that turf to be protected because they see a lot more opportunity of frictionless growth and prosperity possibility over there.

Let’s say, for example, if we look at a framework like the European Union-India Free Trade Agreement, this is actually something which you can broadly describe as a shared economic space which is outside the US-China competition.

And it is a rules-based space. It is a space which provides hope, opportunity, and potential to a large number of countries.

Similarly with something between India and Canada, India and Australia, the EU and Indonesia, India-UK, and so on and so forth, even between ASEAN and other countries. I think we will see these contrasting coalitions or blocs simultaneously coexisting till those blocs get in some way or other disintegrated by the outcome of the US-China competition.