Does BRICS Matter?

BRICS emerged from a market driven intellectual inspiration to bring together a group of states with diverse history, size, economic profiles, political systems, national preferences and strategic cultures for what former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh aspired would be a meeting of equitable partners for a just and fair management of the global community of nations. The anticipation of a ‘just, fair and equitable order’ still seems to be the abiding expectation from the group along with policy co-ordination that would restructure outmoded economic and political institutions and global governance structures in a world that seems to be rapidly moving towards de-globalization (particularly due to decisions from its most vocal proponents in the west). While commitment to ‘enhancement of the voice and representation of BRICS economies in global economic governance’ along with a call to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and common positions on Syria, Afghanistan and North Korea were duly articulated in the course of the 9^th Summit in Xiamen, the intensifying completion over common strategic spaces, the drifting apart of a long term relationship and political and economic instability in two other states were the realities in the background of which the Summit was held.

The low key character of the initial BRICS meetings, mostly on the sidelines of other multilateral summits like the UN and G20, moreover, is in sharp contrast to the spectacle that marks the Summits today. The spectacle itself is not without significance and increased media exposure of those who exercise political power means that gestures and gimmicks are now symbolically constituted and examined. So, the fact that the group photograph of the five leaders at the  Summit was preceded by a handshake between Indian Prime Minister Narendra  Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping made more headlines than the more substantive part of the proceedings which resulted in the signing of four agreements — BRICS Action Agenda on Economic and Trade Cooperation, BRICS Action Plan on Innovation Cooperation, Strategic Framework of BRICS Customs Cooperation and Memorandum of Understanding between the BRICS Business Council and New Development Bank on Strategic Cooperation or NDB a multilateral development bank set up by BRICS . The interpretation of the symbolic, however, is not uncontested. While the handshake initially seemed to have symbolized the official seal on the ‘expeditious disengagement’ at Doklam it is now clear that Doklam itself was peripheral to China’s wider geo-economic and strategic vision where India has a significant part.

There is today an infrastructural logic to most global political events and the significance of the ‘infrastructural alliance’, where the strength of ties is measured by connectivity and volumes of flows, is significantly higher than disputed strips of land and encounters over varying perceptions of political frontiers and frontiers of influence. China’s overtures to India during the Summit are easy to comprehend if one takes note of the growing alignments between India, the US, Japan and Vietnam. The increasing US-India engagement and the strategic implications of the US seeking Indian assistance for a reinvigorated effort to stabilize Afghanistan has not been lost on China which views this as a concern as it does the deterioration of US-Pakistan relations and the continued American presence in Afghanistan. But most importantly, there is recognition of the fact that antagonism with India hinders both the One Belt One Road (OBOR) corridors and brings into question the working of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. AIIB supports China’s logistic vision of Belt and Road with the aim of bringing South Asian economies closer to China, Central Asia and West Asia and eventually also Europe and Africa.

As an initiative OBOR is projected as an instrument to create a continuous land and maritime zone where countries will pursue convergent economic policies, underpinned by physical infrastructure and supported by trade and financial flows. The OBOR policy document further states that the initiative is designed to uphold ‘open world economy and the spirit of open regionalism’, an obvious one time counter to the more exclusive and now defunct US proposed mega economic blocks the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). Deeper economic integration within Asia is embedded in the larger framework of China’s attempt to build rail, road and port infrastructures across Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, thereby dramatically shortening cargo transport time between Asia and Europe/the Middle East and Africa. OBOR has a transcontinental (Silk Road Economic Belt) and maritime (Maritime Silk Route) component. From the Chinese perspective OBOR is projected to be a ‘game changer’ which will eventually transform the way in which global politics would be shaped.

The BRICS expectation was that since all member states were interested in a more equitable global economic order they would become the harbinger of a new matrix of global governance in trade, energy and climate change. What makes global headlines today however is a reiteration of the same selective list of ‘terror networks’ that had been identified in the post 9/11 scenario with a few recent exceptions —Taliban, Islamic State/DAISH, Al-Qaida and its affiliates including Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, TTP and Hizb ut-Tahrir and the meager amount that China has offered (about $80 million) for BRICS cooperation plans that pales into insignificance in terms of its commitment of $124 billion for the Belt and Road Initiative. As the requirement for formulating a concerted strategy for negotiations with ‘industrialized’ west is reduced due to deep contradictions within them the rhetorical character of the grouping for member states that seem to be striking their own individual paths of development and negotiating their own ‘crises’ seems to be ascendant.

The BRICS declaration on terrorism was followed by President Trump’s accusations that Islamabad harbours militants attacking US and Afghan troops and subsequent Chinese attempts to dissociate from the statement. The fallout of this on China’s relations with Pakistan and Pakistan’s reactions to the 2017 BRICS Summit will be the subject of Reflections in the coming week.

Anita

9 September 2017

This article was influenced by the author’s research in the Calcutta Research Group-Rosa Luxemburg Shiftung research on A Social Mapping of Infrastructure, Logistics and India’s Look East Policy.