2023-08-04 11:18:10
The “BRICS”, grouping that designates Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (S of South Africa) had an unusual evolution.
Initially, the acronym was coined by an investment bank in the United States to designate a group of emerging countries with the potential to become large economies. Then there was a Summit organized by the countries of the group that adopted the name BRICS. Afterwards, it became an economic bloc, while China launched its great global initiative BRI “Belt and Road Initiative” and the members of the group created a development bank to neutralize the influence of the World Bank, seen as an instrument of the interests of the United States and Europe.
Today the BRICS intend to be a global counterbalance to the G-7 – formed by the United States, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Japan and the EU as a participant – both from the geopolitical and geoeconomic point of view, a kind of G-5 for the Global South.
It is for this reason that the upcoming Summit, scheduled to take place in South Africa from 22nd to 24th August, is a critical moment for the group.
After drawing international attention to whether or not Russian President Putin would attend the BRICS Summit in South Africa with an international arrest warrant on his back, the spotlight on the Summit dimmed when Putin announced that he would attend the Summit in an “online” format. ” and not personally. But that was just a distraction from the real challenges of the Summit.
The real challenges of the August Summit are two: enlarging the group and China’s leadership. One cannot materialize without the other.
Today the world faces a redefinition of globalization. And that has a lot to do with China’s emergence as an economic and military superpower.
The challenge that China poses to US world hegemony may prove to be more important than that posed by the Soviet Union in the last century during the Cold War. The Soviet Union posed a military challenge to the United States, but it never threatened American hegemony economically.
Today China is in a race with the United States for economic and military hegemony, although the United States is still far ahead.
China needs military and economic alliances to counter American hegemony.
During the Cold War, the United States had NATO and the Soviet Union had the Warsaw Pact as a military counterpoint. The United States and its allies dominated and continue to dominate multilateral decision-making mechanisms, namely the United Nations Security Council (of the five permanent members with veto rights, three are from the West: the United States, the United Kingdom and France), the IMF and the World Bank. The United States had and still has strong allies in the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada and Japan.
China is far from controlling the same supranational political, military and economic decision-making mechanisms and structures. The alliances that China has are loose from an institutional, military and economic point of view, and its leadership role is not recognized in the same way that Western countries recognize the United States. China’s position regarding the war in Ukraine is far from being a military alliance with Moscow and does not have the same reach as NATO, which changed the geopolitical chessboard in Europe with the accession of Sweden and Finland following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
It is in this context that we must analyze the challenges of the August BRICS Summit in terms of enlargement and leadership of the group. China needs to enlarge the group to lead. Adding other large emerging countries would increase the legitimacy of the BRICS and its global geopolitical and geoeconomic role.
It is also for this reason that there are tensions within the group, namely with Brazil and India, which are not very favorable to the enlargement of the group.
Both Brazil and India have aspirations to play a greater role in multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations Security Council, and are understandably reluctant to participate in any reshaping of multilateralism that benefits China more than any other country. They are therefore much less likely to align fully with an institution like the BRICS, which threatens to become an instrument of a China-led world order.
But, unless the Summit is a total failure, it is very likely that the BRICS Summit will produce positive results on both fronts of enlargement and the leadership of the group, without, however, handing over the total leadership to China.
An increasingly multipolar world, but with uncertainties
Any progress at the BRICS Summit will serve to accelerate the multipolarization of the world. The two pivots will undoubtedly be the United States and China, but alliances between countries, especially political and economic, will be multidimensional or, to use another term, variable geometry.
What this multipolar world will look like is still not very clear. But the effects are already being felt in the reorganization of political, economic and commercial alliances around the world.
Paradoxically, this will depend on cooperation between the United States and China. The two superpowers have to define the parameters and security base of the new system, as the United States and the Soviet Union did during the Cold War through nuclear containment treaties.
In the present case, the base would not necessarily be military as in the cold war. It must be broader to include multilateral decision-making mechanisms, trade and economic relations, climate transition and support for developing countries. An agreement in principle between the two superpowers in these areas would make it possible to give impetus and direction to the negotiations in other forums that are more representative of the international community.
Today the relationship between the United States and China is one of pure competition with the risk of losing control and falling into open conflict. The United States is preparing for this eventuality, accelerating the displacement of the production of “chips” from Taiwan, currently the world’s largest producer, to the US or allied countries, making Taiwan less strategic from an economic point of view, in case China decides to invade The island. Today, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is the largest manufacturer of semiconductor chips. This company produces about 90% of high-performance chips worldwide. Furthermore, it controls more than 50% of the global semiconductor foundry market in terms of revenue. An invasion of Taiwan by China would have immense repercussions on the world economy, affecting all industrial production chains that require semiconductor chips.
Three recent trips to China by leading US political figures, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Special Climate Envoy John Kerry, have not allowed for a common ground of dialogue and cooperation to be found between the two superpowers, to serve as an anchor for negotiations between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. And this is unlikely to happen before the US presidential election in November 2024.
End of non-alignment and Africa’s position
During the Cold War, many developing countries followed a policy of non-alignment with the two blocs represented by the United States and the Soviet Union. This position was in line with the non-aligned countries’ policy of giving absolute priority to decolonization in Asia and Africa.
Today it no longer makes much sense to talk about non-alignment politics. Because the multipolar world of today is very different from the bipolar world of the Cold War. African countries must follow an agenda articulated in three points:
First, Africa must seek the means to be adequately represented in multilateral decision-making mechanisms, namely the United Nations Security Council, the IMF and the World Bank, and not just be called to vote for this or that cause.
Second, global economic and trade relations in the late 20th and early 21st centuries were driven by large American multinationals, following a logic of profit and cheap labor regardless of political considerations, reinforcing US economic hegemony. Today, these relations are increasingly driven by the governments of developed countries, namely in the US and Europe, following a geopolitical and geoeconomic logic, which is reflected in the repatriation and relocation of industries, increasing costs and inflation, and causing subsidies to skyrocket. and public incentives. African countries must position themselves in this process by following active economic policies, namely in industrialization, defending their own interests and establishing variable geometry agreements that produce mutual benefits. The United States, Europe, China, Japan, India, and Brazil, among others, represent important economic hubs for African countries. As in the EU, where the Union’s economic policies are increasingly defined taking into account the global economic and trade context, regional economic organizations in Africa must also integrate this dimension into their regional policies. This goes far beyond purely commercial agreements to include economic, social and environmental/climate dimensions, sustainable investment and public debt.
Third, Africa has always been linked to global value chains at the bottom, that is, by raw materials, adding little value to products sold globally. Today, the climate transition, the digital revolution and artificial intelligence are the great vectors of economic and social development in this century and offer great opportunities for sustainable development. Africa must seize this opportunity and seek to locally increase added value in new global value chains and avoid a new race for Africa (“Scramble for Africa”) with the sole objective of obtaining raw materials needed for new technologies for the climate transition.
José Correia Nunes
Executive Director Portal de Angola
Updated
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