6 new countries to join, Modi & Xi interact — key takeaways from BRICS Summit

Questions have emerged as to whether BRICS expansion helps serve Beijing's goal of creating anti-West bloc, but ex-ambassador says most new entrants have good relations with US.

PM Modi with leaders of BRICS during press interaction in Johannesburg, Thursday | Twitter @MEAIndia

New Delhi: The 15th BRICS Summit in South Africa’s Johannesburg marked a first — the expansion of the grouping to include six new countries. Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia will become members of the grouping in January 2024, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Thursday.

Questions have emerged as to whether this helps serve Beijing’s goal of creating a geopolitical bloc against the West. 

Apart from the expansion, the summit also reportedly saw a brief interaction between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. This was the first time the two have interacted in public since the Galwan clash in eastern Ladakh in 2020.

This was the first summit of the grouping — which currently consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — to held in person since the Covid-19 pandemic. It resulted in a lengthy joint statement with 94 paragraphs titled the “Johannesburg II Declaration”. 

A key takeaway from this was the change in wording with regard to calling for reforms within the UN Security Council (UNSC). The declaration explicitly stated support for the “legitimate aspirations” of Brazil, India and South Africa to play a greater role in international affairs, in particular in the United Nations and its Security Council. This phrase is new, and does not feature in previous BRICS joint statements.

In his statement to the press, Ramaphosa said the five current BRICS member states had came to an understanding based on agreed-upon criteria, though he did not specify what kind. “As the five BRICS countries, we have reached agreement on the guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures of the BRICS expansion process, which has been under discussion for quite a while,” he said.

He added that that the five member states had reached a consensus on the “first phase” of this expansion process and that “further phases” would follow.

Experts including Happymon Jacob, an associate professor at School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, view BRICS expansion as a “win” for China, right next to the “Sino-centric” Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). However, others disagree.

According to Anil Trigunayat, a former ambassador and current senior adviser with the BRICS Chamber of Commerce, it would be wrong to assume that the induction of six new members means China has in any way succeeded in nudging BRICS towards becoming a geopolitical bloc against the West.

“Save for Iran, all these countries have great relations with the US. They all also have an Act East Policy of sorts and view India and China as critical markets. This doesn’t make BRICS an anti-Western grouping; just a non-Western one,” he told ThePrint.

Former ambassador Rajiv Bhatia argued that there could have been different motivations behind admitting certain countries. “Ethiopia and Egypt will help strengthen African presence in BRICS and when it comes to the two oil-rich Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the assumption is that they will play a role in helping address financial constraints of the New Development Bank,” he said.

How expansion bodes for India

With the induction of six new countries, India’s trade deficit with BRICS member states is likely to touch $180 billion — nearly one-and-a-half times its total trade deficit with current BRICS countries, which stands at $125 billion.

But experts argued that a bulk of this number has to do with India’s trade deficit with China and that this data may not be as “consequential” as one might think. “Since intra-BRICS trade is only about six percent, this data is not as consequential as we may think. The main point of adding these new members has more to do with inclusive multilateralism than the economic sphere,” said Bhatia.

The weeks leading up to the BRICS Summit were marked by reports that India was adopting a more cautious approach to BRICS expansion compared to its fellow member nations China and Russia, who were in favour of a more “swift” induction of new member countries.

This was disputed by the Indian foreign ministry twice. 

In early August, during a press briefing, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Arindam Bagchi termed such reports “baseless” and said that India is not opposed to the expansion of BRICS. Indian foreign secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra reiterated this during a press conference two days ago where he said India is approaching the topic of expansion with a “positive intent and an open mind”.

With six new members, questions also have emerged as to whether the bloc’s name will undergo a change, given that it was originally BRIC until South Africa joined in 2010, making it ‘BRICS’.

ThePrint reached the MEA for clarification via text messages but had not received a response by the time of publication. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.

Modi & Xi’s brief interaction 

In a video shared on X by news agency ANI, Modi could be seen speaking and moving his his hands animatedly while Xi nodded as the two approached the stage before delivering statements to the press Thursday. Reports also surfaced suggesting that the two leaders shook hands after the press interaction, though this is yet to be verified. 

Last year, the two leaders reportedly exchanged pleasantries during a dinner hosted by Indonesian President Joko Widodo during the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Bali, and shook hands. While this was a private event, it was nonetheless significant, being the first time the two leaders had come face to face since Indian and Chinese troops clashed along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in April 2020, creating great strain in the bilateral relationship.

Since then, however, bilateral relations have continued to be tense, with the two sides holding 19 corps commander-level talks to no avail, and with large contingents of troops still stationed in border areas along the LAC.

Although bilateral trade and New Delhi’s trade deficit with Beijing appear to be ballooning, the two countries have also clashed in the economic sphere, with heated campaigns in India to boycott Chinese products and the Indian commerce ministry’s move earlier this month to restrict the import of laptops, a bulk of which come from China.

However, an opportunity could arise for Modi and Xi to share the stage once again in Indonesia next week, should they attend the East Asian Summit (EAS) and the ASEAN Summit. Xi is also expected to fly down to Delhi for the G20 Leaders’ Summit from 9 to 10 September, though this is yet to be confirmed by the Chinese foreign ministry.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)