Brazil, South Africa and BRICS: towards a multipolar world order?

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the West (the EU and the G7) unleashed a barrage of sanctions designed to bring the Russian economy to its knees.

According to the French finance minister, the Russian economy would collapse as a result and the rouble would be reduced to “rubble” (Joe Biden).  Russia would also be isolated diplomatically, as a majority of states voted to condemn the invasion in the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Over a year one and none of the West’s economic and diplomatic war aims have been achieved.  Russian GDP grew 4.9% in the second quarter of 2023 while the eurozone, and especially Germany, have sunk into recession. That is a damning indictment of the relative economic weakness of the collective West.  It has fired its best economic weapons and they have turned out to be duds.

Diplomatically, Russia goes from strength to strength. The newly re-elected Xi Jinping visited Moscow in March to consolidate the deep strategic alliance between Russia and China.  The Africa summit held in St Petersburg at the end of July was attended by 49 countries and 17 heads of state.  Russia’s relations in Latin America are also good, as evidenced by Sergei Lavrov’s tour of the continent in the spring.

A key axis of Russian (and Chinese) foreign policy is the development of a multi-polar world.  FVD International held its first Twitter Space on this subject some months ago. Two international organisations are interesting in this regard, both of them structured around the Russia-China axis.

The first is the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation; the second is BRICS.  The SCO was created in 2001 and covers Halford Mackinder’s heartland – the Eurasian landmass which he said was essential for control of the world.  This organization received a recent boost when Iran joined it this year, India and Pakistan having joined in 2017.

The other organization is BRICS.  Like the SCO it includes the biggest country in the world (Russia), the most populous country in the world (China) and the biggest democracy (India).  Unlike the SCO it is present on other continents, with Brazil and South Africa as members.

And like the SCO, countries are queuing up to join BRICS. Over 20 countries have applied including including Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Indonesia, Egypt and Ethiopia.

The forthcoming BRICS summit to be held next week in the South African capital, Pretoria, is an important milestone on the path to a multipolar world order.  One of the key issues will be de-dollarisation.  The dollar has been weaponised – countries and companies are sanctioned for using it to trade with countries the US does not like - and so naturally states are keen to stop using it and find other solutions instead.

The core of BRICS, as of the SCO, is in Eurasia – Russia, China, India.  Brazil and South Africa are the geopolitical outliers.  Their relationship with the USA and the collective West is much more ambiguous.  President Putin is not attending the summit in Pretoria precisely because South Africa refused to leave the International Criminal Court following its ridiculous indictment of Putin over the Ukraine war.  Brazil is also an unknown quantity, the new-old president, Lula da Silva, being closer to the new world order Left than his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.

That is why, on 16 August, FVD International’s Twitter Space will be devoted to these two non-Eurasian pillars of BRICS – vast countries with their own problems and personality.  Join us an our guests Simon Roche and Suelle Harts-Rodrigues to examine these two emblematic representatives of the Global South which, it seems, is starting to take the initiative in world affairs.