Putin to unveil his vision for a more balanced world in Kazan

BRICS+ wants to offset Western domination, including via ‘de-dollarisation’. It certainly has grown in numbers and influence, but some potential joiners are getting cold feet.

Valery SHARIFULIN/ AFP

Russia's President Vladimir Putin looks on during a meeting with Iran's conservative Parliament Speaker on the sidelines of a BRICS parliamentary forum in Saint Petersburg on July 11, 2024.

Putin to unveil his vision for a more balanced world in Kazan

Nazareth Seferian

last update on 21 Oct 2024

The BRICS group of nations is growing, and its two-day summit will be held in the Russian city of Kazan on 22 October, where newcomers are set to attend for the first time. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates will join the club, named after its original emerging market members: Brazil, Russia, India, and China and later joined by South Africa, completing the acronym 'BRICS'.

The expanding bloc, now known as BRICS+, will keep its name, but it is also seeking a bigger role on the international geopolitical scene. It is seen as providing a better representation of the issues affecting developing markets and the global south and will be closely watched across international politics for what its expansion will look like.

Russia, as the current chair of the group, has been particularly vocal ahead of the summit. President Vladimir Putin recently said: “As of today, more than 30 countries—more precisely, 34 states—have already expressed a desire to join the activities of our association in one form or another. Therefore, we have launched an active discussion with all BRICS participants on the modality of this new category of partner states, which will be approved in Kazan”.

Like the other major international events held in Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the summit seeks to show the Western world that the Kremlin is not as isolated as some powers hoped it would be.

The numbers on show in Kazan will be significant. It will host 24 national leaders, with the number of national delegations reaching 32. They will include Nikol Pashinyan from Armenia and Ilham Aliyev from Azerbaijan, Russia’s so-called “near abroad”.

Other attendees look somewhat less predictable and reveal the growing influence underway: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stand out. With Turkey, a member of NATO, any move toward joining BRICS+ would be significant as Ankara seems keen on seeking a bigger role in the bloc.

China’s President Xi Jinping is expected to attend, alongside Brazil’s President Luiz Ignacio Lula Da Silva and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in attendance. Iran’s newly elected President, Masoud Pezeshkian, will also be there.

Marco Longari / AFP — President of China Xi Jinping, President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi gesture during the 2023 BRICS Summit.

Kazan will give Russia a high-profile platform to present its vision for rebalancing a world dominated by the West, especially through trade and financial transactions.

De-dollarisation

Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has already spoken out. At a meeting of the bloc’s financial bodies earlier in October, he said: “The creation of an independent and sustainable payment and settlement infrastructure is a key element of the international monetary and financial system to strengthen the autonomy and financial sovereignty of the BRICS countries.

“Among the advantages of the proposals that we presented and worked on in BRICS this year is the creation of a fast, cheap, transparent and equally accessible mechanism with the minimisation of trade barriers.”

The group wants to end the dependence of international trade on the US currency, an overt policy known as de-dollarisation. Russia’s ambassador to South Africa, Ilya Rogachev, outlined the rationale:

“Because there are so many economic sanctions imposed by Western countries against BRICS members and other countries of the global south and global east, we can say that they have weaponised the dollar and the euro. So, the rest of the world is simply compelled to move away from these currencies in their exchanges.”

Moves away from the dollar driven by the BRICS+ nations have so far produced mixed results. There is continued discussion of some kind of common currency and a constant push for the greater use of local currencies in international trade.

In 2023, one-fifth of oil trade was reported to have taken place without the dollar, something that was unthinkable just a decade or two ago. Analyst Michael Corbin, who has tracked developments over alternative currencies, has said that “the threat of de-dollarisation and a digital BRICS currency do not appear imminent” but added: “There is no doubting the commitment, particularly by China and Russia, to the creation of an alternative to the existing financial architecture underpinned, as it is, by the dollar.”

Kazan will give Russia a high-profile platform to present its vision for rebalancing a world dominated by the West

Balancing acts

Russia and China are openly pursuing an agenda to counter Western dominance. However, some BRICS+ nations are happy to juggle their membership with roles in other international groups.

All the original BRICS members are also in the G20. India increasingly sees itself as a major global player. Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, and South Africa have key political and economic partnerships with Western countries that they will seek to enhance through other platforms. In Kazan, Russia will be keen to highlight how BRICS+ is more representative of the global economy than Western-dominated groups.

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov pointed in an interview earlier this year toward the bloc's growing economic significance: "BRICS has already surpassed the G7 in terms of purchasing power parity: the group accounts for 35.6% of global GDP, while the G7 accounts for 30.3%. By 2028, the situation will evolve further in BRICS's favour: 36.6% versus 27.8%.

"The collective share of the member states in the global economy is $58.9tn. BRICS accounts for more than one-third of the Earth's dry land, 45% of the world's population, over 40% of all oil production, and about a quarter of the world's exports of goods."

Members like India and Brazil have a significant share in all these numbers, but to them, the bloc is just one of several platforms on which they can promote their interests.

The expansion of BRICS+ is likely to bring further balancing acts. The ideological differences between Egypt and Iran, combined with Turkey's potential entry, could cause significant internal tensions in the coming years.

Other countries on the membership waiting list include Bolivia, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Venezuela, which could require difficult internal manoeuvring with member countries like Brazil and India.

Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi (C) walks on the stage to deliver his remarks as President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (L) and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (R) gesture during the 2023 BRICS Summit.

And the group is not as united as it seems. In the words of Stephen Sestanovich, a former ambassador-at-large and special adviser to Madeline Albright when she was the US secretary of state: "The West should pay attention to what is happening in BRICS, but we should not think that BRICS is a unified grouping".

He argued it was possible to see the extent of differing political positions of the group just by looking at its members from the Middle East, Egypt, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates: "It is not likely that the BRICS Summit in Kazan will put an end to these differences," he added.

Expansion jitters

Expansion—and how and when it should happen and at what speed—will be a major topic at Kazan. The key question to be answered is whether BRICS+ will soon take on more members or create a new category of partner countries.

Russia and China would be happy to see themselves as the leaders of a growing group, but not all members want to see a quick expansion. For India and Brazil, more BRICS+ members will mean a diluted role in the group, especially if their immediate neighbours, like Pakistan and Bangladesh or Venezuela and Columbia, are admitted.

Even the part of the wider expansion already agreed upon has been cast into some doubt. In 2023, the group announced that Argentina and Saudi Arabia would join alongside Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.

But elections in Argentina upended that, and the new government there, led by President Javier Milei, changed course on joining. For its part, Saudi Arabia has not yet confirmed its membership and is still considering joining. The Kremlin had confirmed that the Kingdom would attend the Kazan summit, expecting Riyadh's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud to lead a delegation.

But this week, Russia's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said: "The summit will take place now. We will supply additional information on who will represent Saudi Arabia and whether it will be represented at this summit, and we will draw conclusions from this."

BRICS has surpassed the G7 in terms of purchasing power parity: it accounts for 35.6% of global GDP, while the G7 accounts for 30.3%

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov

There is also some hesitation among some countries that have been considered future BRICS+ members, like Indonesia.

Dr. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, director of the China-Indonesia desk at the Center of Economic and Law Studies in Indonesia, said: "BRICS is seen as an anti-Western coalition given China's domination in the group. Indonesia wants to be neutral, to maintain its position with a free and active policy".

He added: "Indonesia has strong relationships with China, India, and other countries within BRICS. So we don't need any other multilateral forum to strengthen our relationships with those countries."

Indonesia is a major source of nickel, supplying around 30% of the metal globally. Getting the country into BRICS+ or making it a partner state would be seen as an achievement.

Kazakhstan is another big name China has officially backed as a future member. But the leadership of the Central Asian state announced just one week before the summit that it was still considering the invitation in terms of its national interests. The president's press secretary said: "At present and most likely in the foreseeable future, Kazakhstan will refrain from submitting an application to BRICS, including through a multi-stage process of membership or other issues related to the development prospects of this association."

The same statement referred to the United Nations as the "universal organisation with no alternative", to which Kazakhstan gave its preference and suggested that reform of the UN Security Council was a better way to proceed.

The world will be watching the Kazan for signs of what lies ahead for BRICS+ and the extent to which the bloc may shape the future of the world order. However, there are doubts about how much the summit will help Russia. The international politics academic and writer for the Council on Foreign Relations, Stephen Sestanovich, expressed doubts: "Russia is not the most prominent member of BRICS, even though it is hosting the event. Putin likes this idea of being on the world stage, but the BRICS Summit will not end the isolation of Russia."

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