[BRICS-Xiamen]BRICS: Marching Forward

BRICS member states’ consensus on world order is the most essential requirement for the BRICS mechanism to be solidified as a global institution. A review of communiqués, statements and other documents on past BRICS cooperation shows that BRICS countries share commonalities as well as differences in their attitudes towards world order. The greatest commonality is that they all think the current world order needs to be “reformed” or “improved,” in order to enhance its fairness, inclusiveness, representation and efficiency.

Those documents also show that although all BRICS member states are parts of the existing world order, they have starkly contrasting views on how the BRICS cooperative mechanism should be related to the world order. Their stances on a series of major issues concerning global governance are not in alignment. For instance, some believe that the BRICS mechanism and its institutions such as the Shanghai-based New Development Bank are intended to potentially replace existing international institutions, while others consider BRICS merely complementary and collaborative with current global institutions such as the World Bank. They want BRICS to coexist parallel to existing international institutions without challenging them.

China is a key member of BRICS. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012, Chinese leaders have stressed on many important bilateral and multilateral occasions that China is part of the current world order, and that pursuit of some very important international initiatives proposed by China, especially the Belt and Road Initiative, is not meant to “reinvent the wheel, and rather aims to complement the development strategies of involved countries by leveraging comparative strengths.” China is “ready to share the experiences of development with other countries, but has no intention of interfering in other countries’ internal affairs, exporting our own social system and model of development, or imposing our own will on others. In pursuing the Belt and Road Initiative, we will not resort to outdated geopolitical maneuvering. We hope to achieve a new model of win-win cooperation. We have no intention of forming a small coalition detrimental to stability; what we hope to create is a big family of harmonious co-existence.”

Meanwhile, China has always emphasized that the international community should work together to forge a new world order that is fairer and more reasonable and build a “community of shared future for mankind.” China defines itself as a “facilitator” of the new international order.

As the world order stands at a crucial crossroads, various countries are in heated debate and hold different views on its future. Considering this, BRICS countries should hold high-level meetings on building the new world order to coordinate their stances and reach wide consensus on this issue. Coordinating BRICS member states’ stances and policies on the world order should be given priority in BRICS cooperation and the bloc’s international institutionalization.

Solidarity of BRICS Countries is Crucial

Clearly, geopolitics is a major obstacle in the way of solidarity of BRICS countries. In the 21st Century, geopolitics hasn’t melted away due to globalization, but has become even more complicated.

How should geopolitical obstacles hindering international cooperation be eliminated? Other than giving up “geopolitical mindsets” as some countries such as China have done, it also requires redesigning and reconstructing international rules to prevent geopolitics from hindering global development and world order.

As an emerging international cooperation mechanism, BRICS needs to optimize its institutional design and construction if it wants to play a central role in global peace, development, governance and order. Currently, BRICS is learning from international financial mechanisms such as the Bretton Woods System, but it transcends all of them. Institutions built by BRICS countries, such as the New Development Bank, are not controlled by the largest economy in the bloc (China). All member states hold equal rights in voting and operation. Consequently, BRICS is an international cooperation mechanism void of hegemony. Currently, international relations academia has yet to fully discuss hegemony-free international cooperation. The BRICS mechanism offers the possibility of hegemony-free international cooperation. However, only time will tell whether it can outlast international cooperation marked by hegemony.

BRICS should work hard to become a catalyst and the backbone of world peace. It can achieve this goal by drawing on lessons learned from Europe’s century of peace and progress (1815-1914) and eventually become a global coordination mechanism for the 21st Century. Europe’s coordination mechanism used to be one source of today’s global governance. Only when geopolitical obstacles are removed can countries around the world forge public or common power to address global problems together. Evidently, BRICS hasn’t defined itself as an institutional arrangement for global coordination. Following the old “geopolitical path” will only downgrade international cooperation frameworks like BRICS, and even make them “talk shop.” If we make BRICS a global coordination mechanism devoted to global peace, it can avoid getting trapped in the vicious circle of geopolitics.

If BRICS countries can reach consensus on global coordination at the upcoming Xiamen Summit, they will be able to intensify internal solidarity. One noteworthy point is that BRICS countries are not only looking to protect their interests, but also to promote world peace. The BRICS mechanism was created to safeguard peace. In a sense, this has made BRICS cooperation indispensable for countries that may risk falling into conflict or even war if there is no such mechanism. In the future, other developing countries joining the BRICS mechanism should also pledge to help improve the emerging global coordination mechanism to continue the peaceful nature of BRICS cooperation.

China-India relations present a good example. History has shown that even if the two countries reach consensus on many multilateral cooperation projects globally (within which, of course, disagreement and discord remain), such cooperation plays a limited role in resolving their complex bilateral issues. If China and India coexisted in an institutionalized, close international coordination mechanism, things would be different. Both countries would be pressured to solve disputes for fear that seceding from the mechanism would exacerbate problems.

BRICS Cooperation Accelerates Healthy Globalization

BRICS cooperation has the following features:

First, BRICS is a global development initiative that aims to explore “new development,” rather than continue “old development.” Data and analysis show that “old development” would only generate greater challenges. Of course, it is not an easy task to define “new development” and achieve “new development” because the relationship between old and new development is extremely complicated. However, one thing is sure: “new development” should be sustainable, balanced, inclusive and fair — developmental concepts accepted globally.

Second, the BRICS mechanism emphasizes South-South cooperation. Since its inception in the 1970s, South-South cooperation has weathered 40 years of experience. Prior to the founding of the BRICS mechanism, limited progress was made in South-South cooperation and countries of the Global South were plagued by some of the worst conflicts in the world. Will the rise of BRICS and the Belt and Road Initiative be a turning point for South-South cooperation? Will South-South cooperation herald an era of fast development? These questions are worth exploring.

Third, BRICS cooperation plays a significant role in promoting global development. Prior to 2008, globalization (which began in the 1970s) was not comprehensive and hadn’t yet spread around the world. At that time, some renowned American scholars admitted that globalization was indeed regional. Only when those key non-Western countries such as China, India and Brazil became completely immersed in the trend did globalization really go global.

The current international situation contrasts the 1990s when developed countries such as the United States and Britain considered globalization “inevitable.” Nowadays, the pace of globalization is slowing worldwide, especially in Europe and the United States. Some believe that the trend of globalization is even reversing.

In the event that globalization faces challenges, BRICS should shoulder two new tasks: Help non-Western countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America become new driving forces and even the main engine of globalization. Currently, European and American developed economies remain the mainstay forces of globalization, but many doubt whether they will continue to play a leading role in the future. Meanwhile, globalization cannot be achieved through only the efforts of developed countries. If they can maintain sustained development, BRICS countries will play a greater role in the transformation, diversification and deepening of globalization. The other task is to achieve real, balanced globalization and rebalance the trend. Only balanced globalization will last long.

We must realize that BRICS countries’ role in globalization is still smaller than that of Europe and the United States. At this point, we must properly evaluate the role of BRICS countries, rather than exaggerate it. No one can deny that BRICS countries are pushing globalization forward. In the future, BRICS countries will play a greater role than Europe and the United States in promoting globalization. Perhaps globalization will be truly global only when all BRICS countries are achieving “new development.” 

The author is a renowned Chinese scholar on international relations, a professor at the Ocean University of China and president of the Institute of Marine Development.