Tag Archives | BRICS

There is an expectation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would prioritise a historic turnaround in India’s relations with China as a legacy of his 15 years in power. Things are indeed moving in such a direction. 

The outcome of U.S.-led conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia will have a profound impact on the developing world order. Washington has already lost the former, and its major adversaries are vested in making sure it loses the latter too.

Western currencies have almost been completely phased out in Russia-China trade, as nearly all payments between the countries are now carried out in rubles and yuan, according to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

Economist Michael Hudson details how BRICS could create a mutual settlement currency for payment imbalances among central banks and build an alternative to the financialized neoliberal model of the dollar/NATO bloc.

At its fifteenth summit in August 2023, the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) group adopted the Johannesburg II Declaration, which, amongst other issues, raised the question of reforming the United Nations, particularly its security council. To make the UN Security Council (UNSC) ‘more democratic, representative, effective, and efficient, and to increase the representation of developing countries’, BRICS urged the expansion of the council’s membership to include countries from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

One of the major problems faced by Global South countries is that they are saddled with immense debts in dollars, and Western corporations claim ownership over their resources.

The impact of the G20 Summit in New Delhi on September 9-10 is to be measured by the consensus reached regarding the conflict in Ukraine.

AT the Johannesburg summit of the BRICS countries, it was decided to expand the group beyond its original five, namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, to include six more countries.

AS SIGNIFICANT as the fact of BRICS expansion are which countries are now set to join: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Argentina.

BRICS countries represent 40% of the world’s population and a quarter of the world’s economy, and the group is now considering a possible expansion to more than 20 other countries.

Despite the limitations of the BRICS project, it is clear that the increase in South-South trade and the development of Southern institutions (for development financing, for instance) challenges the neo-colonial system even if it does not immediately transcend it.

While the five original BRICS states have their geopolitical differences, they are finding enormous common ground on the geoeconomic front as trade volumes surge and trade routes multiply.

New Zealand’s estimation matters because it is a small country in Southern Pacific heavily dependent on trade with China for preserving its prosperity and yet one of the Five Eyes (along with the U.S., UK, Australia and Canada), the exclusive secretive security grouping of Anglo-Saxon countries. 

The U.S. government is trying to divide the BRICS bloc and recruit India for its new cold war on China. Biden doesn’t care that far-right Prime Minister Modi is closely linked to fascistic Hindu-supremacist groups that violently oppress minorities.

The BRICS bloc’s New Development Bank, an alternative to the U.S.-dominated World Bank, is de-dollarizing its loans, promoting local currencies, and adding new members: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe.

The new chief of the BRICS bloc’s New Development Bank, Brazil’s leftist ex-President Dilma Rousseff, revealed they are gradually moving away from the U.S. dollar, promising at least 30% of loans in local currencies of members.

Ecuadorian economist and former presidential candidate Andrés Arauz explains Latin America’s attempt to create a new currency and regional financial architecture, to challenge the “hegemonic, neo-colonial” U.S. dollar-dominated system..