Indonesia
Source: www.thinkglobalhealth.org

Indonesia joined the BRICS, an intergovernmental organization composed of emerging economies, on January 7, 2025, at the start of a year that saw global health governance thrown into flux. The abrupt dissolution of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), health overseas development assistance (ODA) reaching a 10-year low, and adoption of the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Pandemic Agreement created an opening to reshape multilateralism and shift from established paradigms centered around foreign aid to more equitable participation between high- and low- or middle-income countries (LMICs). Indonesia's accession to the BRICS, therefore, should be read as a pragmatic attempt to widen its negotiating avenue and reduce its dependency, particularly in pharmaceuticals research and development (R&D) and health emergency preparedness.

BRICS members offer fresh perspectives to the established market-driven, private-sector-oriented model. The bloc's emphasis on strengthening human capital, through expanding access to affordable medicines and building domestic pharmaceutical capacity, complements Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto's National Transformation Strategy to improve infrastructure and strengthen the country's economy. By joining BRICS, Indonesia can take advantage of existing diplomatic levers, infrastructure, and manufacturing to unlock a pathway to locally producing end-to-end priority drugs and establishing a major role in global health. These shared priorities align with BRICS initiatives on tuberculosis (TB) vaccines and treatment R&D, offering Indonesia domestic gains and an opportunity to expand South-South health cooperation.

Global Health Cooperation from BRICS

To determine the extent to which Indonesia's decision to join the BRICS can influence global health, it is important to look at other members' engagement in health. Since joining the bloc in 2009, Brazil has played a leading role in global health-policy negotiations, including providing antiretroviral drugs for people living with HIV/AIDS and expanding access to TB drugs. In 2025, Brazil's BRICS presidency spotlighted a critical juncture to end TB by 2030. The country convened the BRICS Tuberculosis Research Network, which aims to develop new vaccines and accelerate production of treatments and vaccines against the disease. Brazilian institutions Fiocruz and Bio-Manguinhos developed the first national messenger RNA (mRNA) platform for vaccines and therapies to be used against TB. That network is particularly valuable to Indonesia, which has the second largest TB incidence worldwide.

China, through its Belt and Road Initiative, has engaged in vaccine diplomacy, exemplified by the rapid and extensive distribution of Chinese-produced COVID-19 vaccines. Since 2021, Indonesia's bilateral agreements with China have allowed for collaboration in the vaccine and genomics ecosystem, and in 2026, the two countries committed to establishing artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine. Although Indonesia maintains bilateral health ties with China, BRICS membership offers the country access to the Vaccine R&D Center, which was presented by China in 2022. The center now supports Indonesia's Group of 20 (G20) Presidency agenda on equitable research and production of vaccines.

India, a BRICS member that supplies 20% of all generic drugs prescribed globally, has long been known as the "pharmacy of the world." For Indonesia, greater proximity to India's pharmaceutical ecosystem could translate into opportunities to deepen existing collaboration. Most immediately, Indian manufacturers are positioned to transform chronic disease treatment through biosimilar semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity. Indian manufacturers are expected to produce semaglutide for less than $6 per month following the May 2026 patent expiration in Brazil, Canada, China, and India—far less than branded products like Wegovy, which costs $195 (3.1 million Indonesian rupiah) per month in Indonesia.

Indonesia's Path

Indonesia can negotiate advance-procurement agreements to import biosimilar semaglutide once production scales, improving access for millions of Indonesians currently priced out of treatment. This price difference matters for Indonesia, where diabetes prevalence among individuals aged 15 years and older increased from 10.9% to 11.7% between 2018 and 2023 and among adults living with overweight or obesity from 35.4% to 37.8% in the same period.

Collaboration in chronic disease treatment could build on the already operational India-Indonesia pharmaceutical partnership. Since 2011, Bio Farma has collaborated with the Serum Institute of India on vaccine development and access. In January 2025, the two companies formalized a partnership [PDF] on tuberculosis diagnostics and recombinant BCG vaccine development. BRICS membership strengthens this collaboration by situating it within wider manufacturing and R&D initiatives instead of just part of a standalone bilateral-collaboration track, and strengthens Indonesia's position to leverage India's manufacturing scale for future vaccine development.

In December 2025, Minister of Industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita reaffirmed Indonesia's commitment to collaborate with Russia through the BRICS Centre for Industrial Competencies (BCIC), which encompasses bioindustry development alongside other key areas. Within bioindustry, oncology stands out as particularly advantageous: Russia's Gamaleya National Research Center, in collaboration with the National Medical Research Radiological Centre, has developed a personalized mRNA-based cancer vaccine (Neoonkovac) that received approval for clinical use on November 21, 2025.

Although the vaccine is approved for melanoma, the adaptability of mRNA platform technology for other cancers in the future could be strategic for Indonesia. In 2022, the Global Cancer Observatory [PDF] recorded more than 400,000 new cancer cases in Indonesia, with a mortality rate exceeding 50%. The next year, the Ministry of Health Indonesia published the National Cancer Strategy 2024-2034 [PDF], including the cost analysis: cancer is the second most expensive catastrophic disease in Indonesia and accounts for 17% of Indonesia's national health-insurance catastrophic diseases budget, costing approximately 5.97 trillion Indonesian rupiah ($35.86 million) in 2023 alone.

BRICS membership could give Indonesia preferential access to licensing or coproduction arrangements for Russia's mRNA cancer vaccine technology, extending BCIC's bioindustry mandate into oncology and signaling Indonesia's intent to move up the pharmaceutical value chain beyond the manufacturing of generic products that it acquires from India.

Alternatives from the West
Beyond diplomacy, the BRICS also seeks influence in financing and aid models. The creation of the BRICS' New Development Bank (NDB) signaled a shift from traditional finance institutions like the World Bank and the seeking of new strategies to grow the bloc's influence and create a new order. For Indonesia, the NDB's financing is particularly attractive: 88.2% of loans [PDF] are government-to-government lending, 34.5% are denominated in local currency, and the bank operates without policy conditionalities [PDF] attached. This means that the government can access NDB financing to build domestic vaccine-manufacturing plants, pharmaceutical production facilities, and health R&D infrastructure without the reforms or restrictions typically attached to World Bank lending.

Indonesia can use its membership to bring fresh mediating skills to the BRICS negotiating table. As part of the Group for Equity, which is coleading discussions around the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system annex to the WHO Pandemic Agreement, Indonesia could help unify BRICS countries and advance a more pragmatic, cohesive pandemic-preparedness strategy. Successfully brokering BRICS cohesion on PABS could elevate Indonesia's profile in global health governance, establishing the country as a credible negotiator in international health law. BRICS membership, combined with Indonesia's G20 experience, strengthens this positioning. On the other hand, if Indonesia limits its role to avoid straining relations with Western allies, it will undermine the self-reliant pharmaceutical strategy and financing autonomy that President Prabowo's National Transformation Strategy requires.

In the coming years, Indonesia will have to determine its participation in the bloc's health-cooperation dynamics. BRICS membership provides Indonesia with the partnerships, financing, and technology transfer pathways needed to build end-to-end pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity. Furthermore, BRICS's centers, such as the Vaccine R&D Center or the Center for Industrial Competencies, can complement bilateral cooperation by enabling scale, coordination, and bargaining leverage.

United Kingdom
Source: www.commonwealthroundtable.co.uk

[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies. Opinions do not reflect the position of the editorial board.]

The road ahead: can BRICS build a durable multipolar architecture?

If BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] is to shape a multipolar world, it must evolve beyond symbolic declarations. Advancing concrete mechanisms, such as shared financial instruments, a functional BRICS currency or a supranational development fund for climate and AI, is essential (CFI, Citation2025; Savarese & Hughes, Citation2025). Institutional strength would also require consensus on trade, sanctions and security policy across diverse national interests.

Furthermore, maintaining unity within a heterogeneous bloc is challenging. India’s cautious stance, Brazil’s moderated diplomacy, and Russian and Chinese strategic opacity highlight competing interests and agenda between BRICS members. Shared priorities, such as climate finance, digital governance and Global South solidarity, must be actively pursued, with frameworks for reconciliation when individual interests diverge.

BRICS must balance assertiveness with engagement, in order to balance Western dominance. Summit attendees denounced protectionism but refrained from taking a confrontational stance with Russia, or on fossil fuel consumption. This indicates a pragmatic group strategy: critique as needed, but avoid ideological extremism to preserve both trade and political influence.

Leadership and continuity are vital for BRICS to enhance its geopolitical weight. Brazil’s 2025 presidency, followed by India in 2026, marks a regional leadership shift. India must build on Rio’s outcomes while balancing ties with China, Russia and the USA. Yet the ICC arrest warrant against Putin complicates Russia’s in-person participation, risking weaker symbolism if leaders are absent. China’s and Russia’s presence remains essential, and host nations must find pragmatic ways to keep Moscow engaged without undermining legitimacy.

BRICS expansion: implications for the Commonwealth

The expansion of BRICS signifies an important shift in global geopolitical and economic structures, presenting significant challenges and opportunities for the Commonwealth and its members. Recent additions such as Saudi Arabia and Argentina amplify BRICS’s influence, especially in discussions on global financial reform and the shift from dollar dependency (Encyclopedia Britannica, Citation2024; ING Think [ING], Citation2024).

For Commonwealth nations, especially prominent members such as India and South Africa, expanded BRICS membership provides alternative avenues for economic growth and strategic autonomy. India’s decision to prioritise BRICS (and the G20) highlights its aspirations to assert leadership among Global South countries, aiming for a multipolar international order less reliant on Western institutions (Carnegie Endowment, Citation2025; Democracy Now!, Citation2024). South Africa similarly leverages BRICS to diversify the country’s economic partnerships, consolidate regional leadership in Africa and reduce dependence on Western economic support (Carnegie Endowment, Citation2025). For both countries, the Commonwealth as an international organisation does not feature in their priorities among foreign policy platforms.

The expanded BRICS also underlines the existing significant challenges for the Commonwealth as a cohesive international organisation. The prioritisation by key members of BRICS summits over attendance at Commonwealth meetings highlights continuing vulnerabilities in the Commonwealth’s perceived importance and struggle for relevance (Policy Exchange, Citation2024). Additionally, Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia must now navigate tensions between loyalty to traditional Commonwealth values, and the pragmatic economic and strategic necessity of engaging positively with an empowered BRICS alliance (European Parliament, Citation2024). Ultimately, BRICS’s expansion embodies a broader global transition towards multipolarity, placing the Commonwealth at a strategic crossroads. Commonwealth countries must carefully recalibrate their diplomatic and economic priorities to adapt effectively to this shifting international landscape.
Conclusion: a transformational moment or a hollow coalition?

The Rio summit was both ambitious and pragmatic, underscoring BRICS’s expanded global reach and diversified agenda. The bloc now faces a pivotal choice: it can harness its collective strength to advance a multilateral, multipolar order with stronger institutions, or risk allowing its efforts to dissipate into rhetoric without meaningful outcomes.
To succeed, BRICS must deepen its institutional frameworks, particularly in finance, trade and technology. Navigating geopolitical turbulence will require the preservation of unity by avoiding overtly anti-Western rhetoric, while instead highlighting pragmatic collaboration and cultivating partnerships that complement, rather than wholly reject, existing Western-anchored structures such as the Quad. Sustaining leadership credibility means not only reducing absenteeism at summits but also minimising public disagreements over divergent national interests and instead emphasising practical cooperation in areas of clear mutual benefit.

In sum, BRICS is neither a ready-made counterweight to the West nor yet a defunct experiment.

Apeksha Pandey is Assistant Professor, Amity Law School, Amity University, Madhya Pradesh.

USAs
Source: thediplomat.com


The growing conflict in the Persian Gulf is a test for BRICS’ model of multipolar cooperation.

As Israeli-U.S. strikes on Iran continue, as does Iran’s retaliation targeting other Gulf states, the crisis is quickly evolving into more than a regional security issue. It is becoming an important test of the political coherence and strategic maturity for BRICS, an alliance that increasingly presents itself as a pillar of an emerging multipolar order. The developments in the Gulf region raise a difficult question: can BRICS translate its shared rhetoric about multipolarity into meaningful coordination when its members’ geopolitical interests diverge?

The grouping today is far more complex than the loose economic coalition it once was. With its expansion in 2024 to include new members from the Middle East and Africa, BRICS now represents a diverse constellation of political systems, strategic priorities and regional alignments. While this expansion has enhanced the bloc’s global weight, it has also introduced new fault lines. The Iran crisis illustrates these contradictions starkly.

Iran itself is a member of BRICS, having joined during the expansion in 2024. Founding BRICS members Russia and China have taken positions that broadly favor Tehran’s strategic autonomy and resist Western pressure campaigns. India, by contrast, has adopted a far more cautious posture. New Delhi’s approach reflects its long-standing attempt to balance relationships among competing powers in the Middle East while safeguarding key economic interests. Among these, the development of Iran’s Chabahar Port has been a central pillar of India’s strategy to expand connectivity with Afghanistan and the broader Central Asian region. 

These differing responses are not surprising; they reflect the reality that BRICS members remain sovereign actors pursuing distinct national interests. The challenge for BRICS lies precisely in its ability to manage such divergence without eroding the broader project of multipolar cooperation.
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The Iran crisis also intersects with a deeper structural concern: the vulnerability of global energy supply chains and financial networks to geopolitical disruptions. Iran’s periodic threats to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which nearly a fifth of global oil supply passes, highlight the fragility of energy security for many emerging economies. For major energy importers such as India and China, disruptions in this route carry significant economic implications. Around half of India’s crude oil and LNG imports, and nearly 40 percent of China’s oil supplies, pass through the strait.

It is in this context that discussions within BRICS about alternative financial and logistical infrastructure are gaining renewed attention. Proposals such as the BRICS Pay platform, expected to evolve over the coming years, seek to reduce dependence on Western-dominated financial systems such as SWIFT. The broader aim is not merely financial autonomy but resilience against the growing use of sanctions and financial restrictions as instruments of geopolitical leverage.
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However, building such parallel systems is far easier in theory than in practice. Financial networks derive their strength from scale, trust, and regulatory compatibility, elements that cannot be rapidly replicated. Even within BRICS, significant differences remain in financial governance, technological standards, and monetary policy frameworks. Moreover, most member states remain deeply integrated with the existing global financial architecture, making a complete decoupling neither feasible nor desirable.

Instead, what appears more realistic is a gradual diversification strategy: creating complementary mechanisms that allow transactions in local currencies while maintaining engagement with global markets. India’s own approach to rupee-based trade settlements reflects this cautious pragmatism.

Another dimension of the current debate concerns the evolving technological and infrastructural landscape shaping global economic power. Telecommunications networks, digital payment platforms, and logistics systems are increasingly becoming arenas of strategic competition. China’s technological expansion, from 5G infrastructure to digital payment ecosystems, has already demonstrated how economic connectivity can also translate into geopolitical influence.

For BRICS, the question is whether such technological capacities can be leveraged collectively rather than becoming sources of rivalry within the bloc. This issue becomes particularly sensitive in the case of China-India relations, which remain marked by measured engagement and lingering mistrust.

Despite recent diplomatic efforts to stabilize China-India ties after the Galwan clashes of 2020, deep structural mistrust persists. Trade between the two countries remains substantial, but it is increasingly characterized by structural asymmetries and political sensitivities. For India, concerns about technological dependency and supply chain vulnerability have increasingly shaped policy decisions.
Nevertheless, there remains a compelling argument for limited but pragmatic cooperation. Both China and India share common interests in energy security, stable trade routes, and reform of global financial institutions. In a world where traditional Western-led institutions face legitimacy challenges, the ability of emerging powers to coordinate even partially could have significant systemic implications.

Apart from immediate strategic calculations, BRICS also seeks to articulate a broader vision for alternative models of development and governance. For decades, policy prescriptions for the Global South were dominated by the Washington Consensus, emphasizing liberalization, privatization, and fiscal austerity. While these policies produced mixed outcomes, they also exposed structural vulnerabilities in developing economies.

In response, several BRICS members, particularly China, have emphasized more pragmatic and state-led development models. These approaches prioritize infrastructure development, industrial policy, and long-term strategic planning. The emphasis is less on ideological purity and more on experimental policymaking guided by measurable outcomes.

Whether such models can be translated into a coherent multilateral framework remains uncertain. The diversity within BRICS itself means that no single development template can be universally applied. Yet the very discussion reflects a broader shift in global economic discourse, where emerging economies are increasingly asserting intellectual as well as political agency.

The coming months may therefore prove pivotal for the grouping. If tensions in the Middle East deepen, BRICS will face pressure to articulate positions that go beyond general calls for dialogue and stability. Its credibility as a platform for Global South cooperation will depend on its ability to manage internal differences while contributing constructively to international crisis management.

Equally important will be its capacity to move from declaratory diplomacy to institutional innovation, whether through financial mechanisms, technological partnerships or coordinated development initiatives.

Multipolarity, after all, is not simply the redistribution of power among several states. It requires the construction of institutions and norms capable of sustaining cooperation amid diversity.
For BRICS, the Gulf crisis may therefore serve as an early test of whether the grouping can evolve into such a framework or remain primarily a forum for symbolic alignment among emerging powers navigating a turbulent global order.

India
Source: www.thehindu.com

India facilitating negotiations within BRICS on West Asia conflict: Jaiswal

Efforts to build a consensus within the BRICS on the ongoing conflict in the Gulf have been slow as several members of the grouping—including Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—are involved in the crisis that began on February 28 when the United States and Israel attacked Iran, said a senior Indian official on Saturday (March 14, 2026).

“Some BRICS members are directly involved in the current situation in the West Asia region, which has impacted forging a consensus on a common BRICS position on the ongoing conflict. As Chair of BRICS, India has been facilitating discussions among members through the Sherpa channel,” said Randhir Jaiswal, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs.

The acknowledgement of intra-BRICS negotiation came even as External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar continued his telephone calls with his Iranian counterpart Seyed Abbas Araghchi and other regional diplomats. Mr. Jaishankar held his latest call with Mr. Araghchi on Thursday (March 12, 2026), when the BRICS Sherpas meeting took place virtually. “In this conversation, we discussed and exchanged views on bilateral matters as well as issues related to BRICS,” Mr. Jaishankar said in an online post on Friday (March 14, 2026).

The BRICS grouping is scheduled to meet in India later this year. India is the current Chair of the 11-member bloc, which expanded on January 1, 2024, when Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE became members.

However, the conflict in the Gulf has placed the grouping under stress from multiple directions. Following the U.S.-Israel attacks on Tehran and other Iranian locations, Iran retaliated by targeting U.S. military and security assets in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as U.S.-owned energy installations in the region. The rulers of the UAE are calling on Iran to halt the attacks and allow space for diplomacy.

The crisis has also triggered energy market disruptions, affecting major energy-importing BRICS members such as China and India, and increasing calls for a de-escalation of the conflict.

South Africa
Source: www.dailymaverick.co.za

Two BRICS members, Iran and the UAE, are on opposite sides of the conflict, preventing the bloc from taking a unified position.

The war in Iran has driven deep wedges between members of the BRICS bloc, preventing the group from taking a joint position on the conflict and raising questions about the coherence of the 10-nation body, which claims to speak for the Global South. The sharpest differences have emerged between new full members Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which are on opposing sides of the front line in the war that was launched by the US and Israel on 28 February.
In retaliation for a devastating assault on its leadership — including the killing of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — and destruction of much of its military infrastructure, Iran has retaliated by firing missiles and drones into the territories of several Gulf states, including the UAE. Iran has insisted it is targeting only US military facilities in those countries, but some civilian infrastructure, including hotels and airports, has reportedly also been hit, in the UAE in particular.

It is understood that BRICS has been unable to issue a joint statement on the war, and it seems unlikely to be able to, because of these sharp differences between Iran and the UAE. In June 2025, shortly after the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities (the 12-day war), BRICS issued a joint statement calling the strikes “a violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations” and calling on all parties to stop the violence and resolve their differences through peaceful means.

Yet 12 days into this year’s attacks, BRICS as a collective has been silent on the war, although all its member states have individually expressed views on it. Some, like Russia, China and Brazil, have sharply criticised the US and Israeli attacks. Others, like India, Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia, have been more critical of Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Gulf states or have been equivocal.

South Africa’s statement of 28 February tends towards the equivocal category as it condemned “international law violations” without naming any countries. However, it added that “anticipatory self-defence is not permitted under international law and self-defence cannot be based on assumption or anticipation”, which appeared to be a reference to the US’s and Israel’s justifications for their attack.


The Indian impasse

India’s position is critical and pivotal in this impasse. It is one of the five core members, with Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, before BRICS expanded in 2023 and 2024 to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia and the UAE. India is holding the BRICS chair this year, which gives it more influence over decisions. It appears to be content to allow the divisions among members to prevent a collective BRICS position from being expressed because of its own ambivalence.

“India’s position at the moment is being shaped by a very delicate balancing act,” said an analyst, who preferred to remain anonymous. “In this particular crisis, New Delhi appears to have aligned more closely with the emerging US-Israel-UAE axis, which inevitably complicates the domestic and diplomatic optics back home. The government, therefore, seems keen to avoid any BRICS statement that could put it at odds with partners it is currently working with closely.

“At the same time, India cannot openly abandon its traditional posture of strategic autonomy or its longstanding ties with Iran. It was forced to condole Khamenei’s death after five days.

“That tension is precisely why you are seeing a certain studied silence and a reluctance to push for a collective BRICS position. In effect, the safest course for New Delhi right now is simply to keep the temperature down and avoid being forced into a declaratory stance one way or the other.”

The analyst added that India was the odd man out among the core BRICS members, and the manner in which the other members handled India on the Iran issue would determine the future coherence of the bloc.

Former Indian foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon told Karan Thapar on The Wire that India’s failure to condemn the attacks by the US and Israel and the assassination of Khamenei was “inexplicable” and “sad”. He also lamented India taking five days to sign the condolence book for Khamenei.

Menon said the other founding members of BRICS, which will meet for its annual summit in India later this year, would disapprove of India’s position on the Iran war. “They will find it hard to explain why we are silent on this issue.”

Limits of expansion

John Kirton, the director of the BRICS Research Group at the University of Toronto, said: “The expansion of BRICS has frozen its ability to respond to the critical global emergencies of our time, as its silence on the latest war with Iran shows. While Russia and China are weakly supporting Iran, India is tilting toward the US and Israel, its democratic soulmates.”

He added that getting consensus in a joint statement from 10 leaders “is a major coordination burden when so many are busy with more urgent things. And [Chinese President Xi] Jinping wants to be nice to Donald Trump to make the latter’s visit to China in a few weeks a success.”

However, Gustavo de Carvalho, a senior researcher at the SA Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), believes that the failure to agree on Iran should come as no surprise because “BRICS has never really been a place where members coordinate on foreign policy, especially on the really difficult geopolitical issues, and that has always been understood within the group.”

He notes that BRICS has occasionally put out broad statements on global affairs, “but that has never been the core of what BRICS is about. The group’s real focus is economic cooperation, development finance and pushing for reform of multilateral institutions.

“This is a well-established pattern. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 both passed without any collective BRICS response. On Gaza, South Africa went as far as convening an extraordinary meeting in November 2023, but even then, the group could only produce a chair’s summary rather than a formal joint declaration.

“On the 12-day war, the issue was taken up at the Rio summit in July 2025, but reaching even a condemnation of the strikes on Iran required significant internal negotiation over the language.
“The current impasse follows the same logic. BRICS is not an alliance. There are no collective security commitments, no expectation that members will see eye to eye on every conflict. The group holds together because there is a broad understanding that members will agree to disagree on many things, and focus collective energy on the areas where they genuinely converge.

“That is also how internal rivalries tend to be managed, whether the long-running tensions between India and China, the competing interests of Egypt and Ethiopia, or indeed India’s current closeness to Israel while Iran sits at the same table.

“Having two members on opposing sides of an active conflict makes a joint statement very difficult, but that is less a crisis for BRICS than a reflection of how the group has always worked. It brackets the disputes it cannot resolve and gets on with the agenda it can.”

Unprecedented standoff

Arina Muresan, a senior researcher and project manager at the Institute for Global Dialogue in Pretoria, said the standoff between Iran and the UAE, both new members of BRICS, was largely unprecedented (though the armies of two of the original members, India and China, had clashed in 2020 over their disputed border in Kashmir).

“Some would argue that here you are starting to see the fragmentation [of BRICS] because there was no consolidation of the BRICS partnership once expansion took place [from 2023],” said Muresan. She noted that the five new full members all had the same veto rights as the original five, which allowed them to block statements and decisions.

Muresan said it would be interesting to see if the BRICS leaders were able to formulate a common position at their summit this year, on both the Iran war and the US attack on Venezuela earlier this year in which US forces arrested President Nicolás Maduro and took him to the US to face drug-trafficking charges.

“But I think the more interesting point to watch would be India because India’s behaviour towards Israel and the US causes a greater rift between the BRICS than Iran and the UAE.” She added that, given the “incredibly high” level of regional competition between India and China, it was surprising that BRICS had lasted as long as it had.

She noted that the upcoming summit will be a critical test of how members navigate India’s pragmatism while attempting to preserve the bloc’s unity. DM

United Kingdom
Source: www.e-ir.info

Over the last 15 years, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have become a relevant player in world politics. The origins of the bloc can be traced back to a 2001 Goldman Sachs report that highlighted the economic potential of Brazil, India, China, and Russia. With South Africa’s inclusion in 2011, the BRICS have since become an active and increasingly powerful actor in global affairs, aiming to represent the “voice” of the Global South. Led by China’s unrelenting rise in global trade, infrastructure finance, investment, technological innovation, and thirst for natural resources, the bloc has been seen as a potential counterbalance to the US-led liberal international order.

During the last decade, the commercial and financial interactions within the group have increased significantly, accounting for a significant share (20%) of the South-South trade. Moreover, the bloc has been searching to institutionalize with the creation of the New Development Bank (the so-called BRICS Bank) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), both alternatives to the World Bank and the IMF, respectively. These institutions have been accompanied by initiatives to involve their civil societies through projects focusing on education, science, sports, and culture. Indeed, the potential of the BRICS has become so appealing that various countries in the Global South have sought to become another letter in the acronym. In 2023, the BRICS invited several countries to join the bloc, and by 2026, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) became full members, while Bolivia, Cuba, Thailand, Vietnam, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uganda, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Uzbekistan became partner countries.      

Since they are primarily concerned with financial and commercial matters, the BRICS’ major challenge to the liberal international order has been their criticism of the Bretton Woods institutions, as well as underlying discussions of the de-dollarization of their commercial transactions. In geopolitical terms, the bloc has instead been a staunch defender of multilateralism and the UN Charter, as repeatedly proclaimed at the BRICS Summits.

Yet the increasing socio-economic and financial interplay within the bloc and between the bloc and the rest of the Global South has not been translated into a greater geopolitical role in world affairs. Indeed, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the BRICS’ political maneuvering has become increasingly complex. On the one hand, the bloc’s discursive support for the UN Charter has become a dead letter due to its ambiguous statements and policies regarding Moscow’s aggression against Kyiv. Condemning Israel and US policies in Venezuela and Iran, while avoiding any criticism towards Russia, has developed into dialectic challenges and discourse creativity during the BRICS summits. The fact that President Vladimir Putin has not attended summits in South Africa and Brazil due to fear of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against him has shown the limits of sovereign immunity in the 21^st century.

On the other hand, the bloc’s expansion seemed to follow a contradictory, confusing approach, to the detriment of establishing a coherent, clear strategy. While it is evident that there is certain disdain for key aspects of the liberal international order (only one democratic country has been admitted as a full member), BRICS expansion seems to prioritize quantity over quality, anchored in anti-Western values, particularly vis-à-vis democracy, human and minority rights, and the secular division of power. While these post-colonial and post-liberal discourses and policies may provide some degree of homogeneity among members, some political groups and minorities within the BRICS countries and their partners will certainly continue to mobilize and advocate for these values.

The BRICS’ uncertain standing in global politics has been accentuated by Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025. The transactionalism favored by the US in its foreign policy has brought back bilateralism as an underlying strategy in international relations. The unpredictable US President has addressed peace negotiations, war strategies, bailouts, and tariffs on a case-by-case basis, avoiding institutional frameworks in which the US’s material and political power can be diluted, such as within the UN. Moreover, this US strategy has specifically targeted the BRICS. President Trump has discouraged and even threatened the members of BRICS for their alleged aim of de-dollarizing their economies.        

The BRICS members’ responses to this new global scenario have undermined the bloc’s role as a political actor. Regarding tariffs, the countries have been pursuing bilateral agreements with the US rather than negotiating as a bloc. Indeed, India and Indonesia have already signed initial agreements with Washington. More importantly, in relation to the recent attacks by the US and Israel on Iran, the BRICS have completely divided. While Brazil and South Africa have condemned the US and Israel’s actions based on sovereignty and international law principles, China has remained ambiguous, and India has refrained from criticizing the attacks and called for dialogue and diplomacy to solve the crisis. Russia has vehemently condemned the attack and welcomed the new Iranian leadership. More importantly for the BRICS as a geopolitical actor, two new members have become part of the war as Iran is retaliating against US targets in the region, affecting the UAE.        

In both critical situations, the BRICS nations have failed to seize the opportunity to establish themselves as a clear, coherent voice for the Global South and as a driving force behind a multilateral order. The lack of a consistent geopolitical strategy aimed at representing a multipolar, post-Western order has disheartened those who viewed the bloc as a groundbreaking and emancipatory player in global politics. The US continues to wield the capacity, through a combination of carrots and sticks, to outmaneuver any counter-hegemonic initiatives. Moreover, it has become increasingly apparent that the differences in geopolitical strategies and national interests among BRICS countries are often more pronounced than those between any individual member and the US.

Can the BRICS then adapt to the current transactional order? As a global actor, the bloc seems reduced to trade, investment, and natural resources. The biggest challenge for the group today lies in maintaining its commercial and economic linkages, as, beyond anti-Western rhetoric, the geopolitical standings of its members appear increasingly divergent. The wars in Ukraine and Iran and the transactionalism presented by the current US administration in its foreign policy have shown that the BRICS lack the cohesion, clarity, and willingness needed to present a political and ideological challenge to the liberal international order. Accordingly, in the medium-to-long term, the resilience of the BRICS will surface if the bloc can present an integrated global strategy that navigates internal and external shocks without affecting their growing economic interactions.