USA
Source: asiasociety.org

AI safety and its governance have gained urgency from the risks evidenced by recent incidents where AI agents gained unauthorized access to databases of governments and companies. In July 2026, OpenAI’s autonomous AI agents acted against guardrails and gained full access to some of Hugging Face’s servers. In August 2026, OpenAI’s internal model hacked into the Australian government’s Medicare Statistics Reporting Service, accessing non-public data. And in October 2026, India’s Computer Emergency Response Team reported that AI agents hacked into some Indian organizations and gained access to personal data and confidential business data.

As these systems become more capable, the questions of oversight and accountability require immediate attention, emphasizing the need for governance mechanisms that can continuously assess emerging AI capabilities and adapt safety frameworks. Since the AI value chain is globally distributed across development, training, deployment, and monitoring, addressing these risks requires not only technical safeguards but also institutional cooperation among countries. Importantly, for countries that do not have frontier AI capacities such as infrastructure and core technology, AI governance is one of the few leverages through which they could collectively influence the development and deployment of AI and ensure resilience of the AI ecosystem.

The 2026 BRICS New Delhi Declaration, with an emphasis on sustaining multilateralism in a multipolar world, provides an opportunity for India to develop a mechanism to establish collaborations among the Artificial Intelligence Safety Institutions (AISI) across emerging economies. BRICS—which represents 50% of the world’s population, 40% of global GDP, and more than 25% of global trade—is appropriately positioned as one of the only plurilaterals that can enable the development of interoperable AI governance institutions and further add value to the United Nations (UN)-led AI governance process.

Two developments during this year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) further highlight the requirement of coordinated response to AI safety and governance. The UN System White Paper on AI Governance, recommends the development of AI governance tools using existing UN instruments aligned with international law, including the UN Charter and international human rights law. The Call for Control of Frontier AI Models, a joint statement from the leaders of 22 nations, advocates for the development of common AI standards by regional organizations. From UN member states to multinational technology companies, the emerging global debate is moving away from the principles of AI governance and towards building institutions capable of setting standards, enabling verification, and building evaluation capacity.

Building on the momentum of UNGA, India should use its remaining months as chair of BRICS to develop a blueprint of a coordinating mechanism to lead the efforts of developing countries in addressing challenges related to developing contextual AI evaluations systems, as well as ensuring secure deployment, among many other concerns regarding AI safety.

The Chennai Consensus—adopted during the BRICS Science, Technology, and Innovation Ministerial Meeting held in August of this year — has already initiated an International BRICS Forum on Social Sciences and Human Resources for Ethical and Legal Governance of AI. India should use this opening to establish an AI Governance Coordination Mechanism for the bloc that would enable cooperation among AISI and equivalent institutions. This would give BRICS a practical mechanism through which its members could contribute to the development of common baseline standards by building on existing broad standards like ISO 42001, which is an AI management standard, and ISO 42005, which is standard guidance to conduct AI impact assessments. This BRICS AI Governance Coordination Mechanism should enable interoperable mechanisms for AI auditing, which go beyond the mathematical and general questionnaire-based assessments, develop sandboxes to test the contextual reliability of the models, and design mutually compatible model certifications promoting AI safety.

To enable the coordination of AISI, India should consider establishing a technical secretariat. This could serve as a platform for BRICS members to exchange risk-assessment methodologies, develop interoperable audit protocols and tools, coordinate technical standards, and explore mutual recognition of AI safety assessments. The secretariat could subsequently serve as a BRICS interface to the UN-led AI governance process, particularly as the UN develops tools and frameworks anchored in the UN Charter and international law. For India to be one of the key players in shaping the global AI governance, establishing AISI interoperability managed through a technical secretariat in India will be a key initiative.

India has immense global capability in AI development, adoption, and safety. It not only ranks third in the world for AI vibrancy and research and development, but it also ranks second in cultivating AI engineering talent. Not capitalizing on this opportunity means lagging in the development of accountability frameworks and waiting for major economic and political impacts before developing AI safety frameworks.

It is time for India to leverage its remaining months as BRICS chair and lay the groundwork for a mechanism encouraging interoperability of AISI, which will ultimately develop mutually compatible AI audit tools, acceptable AI safety certifications, and dynamic evaluation metrics tackling the new challenges of AI. Even if the remaining time as BRICS chair is very short, India and BRICS members would benefit if AISI interoperability becomes one of the agenda items for 2027 BRICS summit.

Greece
Source: moderndiplomacy.eu

In late October, ministers from BRICS, together with new members and those on partner status, converged in St. Petersburg, for their traditional meeting to share assessments of global economic developments.

In late October, ministers from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS), together with new members and those on partner status, converged in St. Petersburg, the second largest Russian city, for their traditional meeting to share assessments of global economic developments and renew their collective commitment to working toward building a multipolar world order. This marks a further step in shaping their framework for cooperation and contributes to deepening partnerships while implementing the decisions adopted during the previous meeting under the Brazilian chairmanship.

The St. Petersburg forum, on October 29-31, provided the platform to consolidate the steady progress and to forge further entrepreneurship collaboration and make a large contribution to the strengthening of equal and mutually beneficial partnerships. In addition to that, the BRICS members are helping to broaden the geographical reach of business contacts, developing new practical solutions in urban planning, and strengthening humanitarian ties.

Reports indicate that representatives from the business community, regional executive authorities, and expert circles from 63 countries are expected to attend, with more than 3,500 participants in total. Practical interregional cooperation, including the expansion of trade and economic ties, industrial cooperation, investment promotion, and the development of new partnerships, will take center stage during the discussions.

Today, BRICS is one of the driving forces behind global economic growth. The BRICS association accounts for 40 percent of global GDP in terms of purchasing power parity and 23 percent of world trade. Trade between BRICS states has already reached $1.2 trillion.

Despite the turbulent geopolitical situation, countries of the Global Majority are demonstrating a genuine interest in expanding multifaceted cooperation with one another and, in particular, with the Russian Federation, according to Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement. China, India, and Russia are the livewire of the association. For instance, Russia’s initiatives, including the development of international payment mechanisms resilient to external shocks and the establishment of a New Investment Platform are intended to attract capital to key sectors of the economies of BRICS countries and the nations of the Global South and East in general.

Brazilian Minister, Dario Carnevalli Durigan, indicated that Brazil and Russia would broaden trade and economic cooperation. He said that Brazil looks to deepen its cooperation with Russia during the fourth presidential term of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Brazil held the second round of presidential elections on October 25, which was won by the incumbent president, Lula da Silva. This cooperation will develop both at the bilateral level and within the frameworks of BRICS, the UN, and the G20. Brazil aims to increase trade volume, which amounted to nearly $9 billion in January-September 2026, and reduce the trade imbalance. Brazil’s imports from Russia totaled $7.65 billion, while its exports to Russia amounted to only $1.31 billion in said period, the local Russia’s Izvestia said.

The discussions focused on economic cooperation and business between the members that were set out in their New Delhi declaration. These were extended from the Rio Declarations, especially on the BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative and the cross-border interoperability of payment and messaging channels, and the discussions on promoting trade settlements and investments using BRICS local currencies, while respecting national priorities and acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

The forum was supported by the Russian Foreign Ministry and the St. Petersburg government. Relations between BRICS nations are an example of international cooperation of a new type, which is based on the principles of a multipolar world. At the end, the finance ministers group have adopted key documents and set a comprehensive trajectory for BRICS’ future partnership. India, currently, holds the BRICS chairmanship.

MD Africa Editor Kester Kenn Klomegah is an independent researcher and writer on African affairs in the EurAsian region and former Soviet republics. He wrote previously for African Press Agency, African Executive and Inter Press Service. Earlier, he had worked for The Moscow Times, a reputable English newspaper. Klomegah taught part-time at the Moscow Institute of Modern Journalism. He studied international journalism and mass communication, and later spent a year at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He co-authored a book “AIDS/HIV and Men: Taking Risk or Taking Responsibility” published by the London-based Panos Institute. In 2004 and again in 2009, he won the Golden Word Prize for a series of analytical articles on Russia's economic cooperation with African countries.

Russia
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org

“You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
— André Gide

In the world of international treaties and cooperative platforms too much focus has often centered on the inland terrain and shifts in alliances across continental landmasses. The oceanic expanse opens up a far less divisive prospect for international economic diplomacy and there may be a void to be filled in categorizing/cataloging the various institutional arrangements in the world economy governing major oceanic basins. It may then be instructive to look at a three-ocean framework composed of the Atlantic, the Indian and the Pacific oceans and the respective institutional platforms that differ in terms of their core mandate. The pattern arising from such a cursory look at the oceanic platforms of the world economy suggests that there exists substantial scope for these partnerships to exchange best practices and build cooperative arrangements with other oceanic as well as RTA platforms across the world economy.

If we were to look at the key oceanic arrangements across the Atlantic-Pacific-Indian (API) oceanic space – ZOPACAS in the South Atlantic, IORA in the Indian ocean and APEC in the Pacific – we find that these arrangements are almost equal in terms of the number of members: 24 for ZOPACAS, 23 in IORA, 21 for APEC. The Pacific Islands Forum in the South Pacific is also not too far off with 18 members. This similarity in the number of countries (not their structural characteristics) further adds to the greater uniformity across the cooperative arrangements in the oceanic space compared to RTAs and other terrestrial regional arrangements: oceanic space is far less divided across borders, it is less fraught with conflict, it is inherently more connected than the terrestrial domain and more homogenous in terms of the scope for transportation connectivity.

But despite the seeming uniformity across oceanic arrangements, there is a surprisingly high degree of divergence in their mandates. In the case of ZOPACAS it is mostly environmental coordination and security cooperation/de-militarization; APEC is focused on trade and investment liberalization as well as business facilitation; IORA deals with disaster risk management, maritime security, trade and investment facilitation; PIF prioritizes economic integration, resilience as well as mitigation of climate change risks. There is also divergence in terms of the scale of institutionalization and the capacity to conclude international treaties. While such a divergence may limit the near term possibilities for concluding agreements in some areas, there may certainly be scope for a platform for such oceanic partnerships to facilitate exchanges in best practices (emulating and developing capabilities that are more advanced in other such platforms) and common initiatives/coordination in the sphere of environmental policy/Blue Ocean economy.

Across Hemispheres, there is a critical degree of institutionalization/coordination across oceanic platforms of the Southern Hemisphere – ZOPACAS in the South Atlantic, IORA in the Indian ocean (surface area largely to the south of the equator) and PIF in South Pacific. This compares to gaps in regulation observed in the Northern hemisphere, where no comprehensive oceanic arrangement exists (similar to those considered here) in the North Atlantic and the APEC platform that is largely focused on the North Pacific is essentially devoid in its current format of possibilities to forge international alliances. The contrast between the two hemispheres further strengthens the case for a progression of the Southern Hemisphere towards a common cooperative platform that brings together the hemisphere’s oceanic arrangements (ZOPACAS, IORA, PIF) within the SPINOSA (South Pacific-Indian Ocean-South Atlantic) framework as well as the regional integration arrangements such as Mercosur, ASEAN, PACER+ and SACU/SADC) under the MAPS umbrella.

Another reason why a Southern Hemisphere oceanic partnership is feasible has to do with the greater activism of its regional platforms in forging international alliances. In particular, PIF has signed MoUs with ASEAN (2023) as well as with CARICOM (September, 2026). The latter is one of the first agreements signed between maritime/sub-oceanic blocs and may be considered as the first salvo in the process of building alliances across oceanic/maritime space. The most active across oceanic platforms in concluding treaties and alliances is IORA with an MoU signed with ASEAN in 2023, BIMSTEC (April 2025) and the Republic of Korea (2025/2026). IORA has also developed partnerships with international organizations and agencies such as the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). At the same time, ZOPACAS does not have such a network of agreements as IORA or PIF, partly due to its lower degree of institutionalization and the absence of a Secretariat/Headquarters. APEC for its part while having a headquarters in Singapore does not have the mandate to actively engage in international alliances.

Overall, it appears that in terms of international agreements, the few that have been concluded by oceanic platforms thus far have largely been hybrid in character targeting agreements not so much with fellow maritime platforms, but rather with such regional integration arrangements as ASEAN and BIMSTEC. This highlights the “bridge role” that regional integration arrangements may exercise in facilitating greater integration of oceanic platforms into the world economy. Another factor that may drive greater institutionalization and integration of oceanic platforms into the world economy maybe their intra-bloc homogeneity, even though this factor is likely of significantly lower importance compared to existing regional/terrestrial RTAs. Across all oceanic platforms, ZOPACAS is one of the more diverse, with a somewhat higher level of concentration observed with respect to IORA, driven by the regional role of economies such as India. The highest level of GDP concentration across country members is observed in the Pacific – with respect to both APEC (China and the US being economically dominant) and PIF (dominated by Australia and New Zealand).

Going forward, greater connectivity across the API oceanic arrangements may be driven by the anchor/largest economies, bi-oceanic/tri-oceanic economies (including the likes of PIERs[1]) as well as the regional and trans-regional arrangements, where maritime economic cooperation plays a significant role. With respect to the connection between IORA and ZOPACAS crucial impulses could be delivered by the likes of IBSA (also perhaps the IBSA+Indonesia format) as well as the broader BRICS/BRICS+ grouping. IORA and PIF have already conducted collaborative dialogues in 2024 with the active bridge role played by ASEAN as a party to MoUs with both IORA and PIF[2].

With a greater harmonization of rules and standards, the Atlantic-Pacific-Indian ocean (API) space may increasingly resemble what API represents in computer science – an oceanic interface for the world economy. Just as in computer science, where API allows different software systems to work together seamlessly on the back of a standardized set of rules, so too in the world economy a platform for oceanic partnerships driven by harmonization of standards and rules may deliver a crucial impulse to global economic cooperation. A network of maritime alliances spanning the world economy is only starting to take shape with the partnership between sub-oceanic platforms such as CARICOM and PIF concluded in autumn of 2026 (we have called for the link-up between PIF and CARICOM back in 2024 as part of our call for the formation of platforms for small economies: https://brics-plus-analytics.org/platforms-for-small-economies-exploring-the-landscape/). Perhaps the most promising venue in the observable future pertaining to the propagation of such alliances is a partnership between PIF and IORA as well as between IORA and ZOPACAS – the latter, however, requiring a higher degree of institutionalization and greater capacity to conclude accords.

At this stage, IORA stands out as one of the most active drivers of forging accords with other regional arrangements, which is a positive factor for the overall API-wide connectivity, in which the Indian ocean geographically serves as a connector-ocean between the Atlantic and the Pacific. APEC for its part while not concluding alliances itself, is serving as a crucial venue giving rise to new connectivity formats and bringing closer together such mega-regionals as RCEP and CPTPP. In effect, just like the oceanic partnerships facilitate cooperation between RTAs and mega-regionals (APEC with respect to CPTPP and RCEP), so do the inland/terrestrial economic accords create scope for greater cohesion within and across oceanic platforms (ASEAN with respect to PIF and IORA).

Lastly, there is an intriguing symbolism in the pattern of this year’s presidencies in the three institutional oceanic platforms in the South Atlantic, Indian ocean and the Pacific. In the case of ZOPACAS the chair in 2026 as well as in 2027 is Brazil, while for IORA it is India in 2025-2027. In the case of APEC the Chair in 2026 is China, while in 2027 the chairmanship is passed on to Vietnam. All these economies holding the presidencies in the respective oceanic arrangements for the period of 2026-2027 come from the BRICS+ world – three from the BRICS core (Brazil, India, China) and one partner country (Vietnam). Furthermore, Brazil, India and China – the presidencies of of the three oceanic alliances in 2026 – also happen to form the first BRICS Troika (past, current and future chairs) under the BRICS Continuity Mechanism proposed by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year. This in turn provides scope to advance the greater harmonization and connectivity across the three oceanic platforms via common maritime initiatives such as the BRICS Distress Network for Seafarers – an initiative advanced by India in 2026 during its BRICS presidency that can be sustained in the coming years by the first BRICS Troika that is also the de facto Troika of key anchors in each of the oceanic basins of the global economy – South Atlantic (Brazil), Indian ocean (India), Pacific (China).

[1]https://brics-plus-analytics.org/bridging-oceanic-divides-in-search-of-new-connectivity-paradigms/
[2] https://www.aseanall.com/news/7673.html
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics

India
Source: www.nationpathindia.com

India is highlighting responsible electronic waste management during BRICS Sustainable Lifestyle Week, observed from November 1 to 7, 2026, with November 6 dedicated to e-waste management, recycling and sustainable disposal practices.

Context and information behind the story

• India's E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, provide a regulatory framework for environmentally sound electronic waste management. At the BRICS level, the New Delhi Declaration recognises the need for stronger waste-management systems, recycling infrastructure and resource efficiency.

Key Takeaways

Important points readers should remember

• E-waste management is an important part of sustainable development.
• India generated nearly 1.398 million metric tonnes of e-waste in FY 2024–25.
• Extended Producer Responsibility strengthens accountability among covered entities.
• Citizens can contribute through repair, reuse and authorised recycling.

India is highlighting responsible electronic waste management during its 2026 BRICS Presidency, with a focus on recycling, resource recovery and sustainable lifestyles to protect the environment and human health.

The growing volume of discarded electronic equipment, including mobile phones, computers, laptops and other devices, presents an increasing waste-management challenge. These products contain valuable materials that can be recovered and reused, while improper handling and disposal can expose people and the environment to hazardous substances.
Editorial Insight

Key Highlights

• India generated approximately 1.398 million metric tonnes of e-waste in FY 2024–25.
• BRICS Sustainable Lifestyle Week 2026 is being observed from November 1 to 7.
• November 6 is dedicated to e-waste management.
• India's E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, came into effect on April 1, 2023.
• The rules establish an Extended Producer Responsibility framework.
• Paragraph 114 of the BRICS New Delhi Declaration addresses integrated waste management, recycling and resource recovery.

According to data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India generated approximately 1.398 million metric tonnes of e-waste during the financial year 2024–25.

To address the challenge, India introduced the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, which came into effect on April 1, 2023. The rules establish an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework to strengthen the collection, recycling and environmentally sound management of electronic waste.

Under this framework, producers, manufacturers, refurbishers and recyclers covered by the rules are required to register through the prescribed CPCB online system. The framework aims to improve accountability and ensure that electronic waste is processed through authorised channels.

Editorial Analysis
Why This Matters

Improper disposal of electronic waste can create environmental and public health risks. Responsible collection, repair, reuse and authorised recycling can help recover valuable materials, reduce pollution and support sustainable resource use.

At the BRICS level, the New Delhi Declaration, adopted at the 18th BRICS Summit held on September 12 and 13, 2026, addresses the growing challenge of waste generation.

Paragraph 114 of the declaration emphasises the importance of strengthening integrated waste-management systems through national policy instruments such as Extended Producer Responsibility, eco-design, sustainable public procurement, improved monitoring and investment in recycling and resource-recovery infrastructure.

The declaration also welcomes the possibility of organising BRICS Sustainable Lifestyle Week in 2026.

The week is being observed across India from November 1 to 7 under the principles of Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment). Each day focuses on a specific sustainability theme, with November 6 dedicated to e-waste management.

The initiative encourages citizens, particularly young people, to adopt environmentally responsible practices. These include repairing and reusing electronic devices wherever possible, separating discarded electronics from regular household waste and handing them over to authorised collection centres or recyclers.

Through these measures, India is promoting greater public awareness about electronic waste while encouraging resource recovery, recycling and a circular economy.

Singapore
Source: www.hinrichfoundation.com

BRICS leads global surge in measures against exports from China

Since 2022, the number of unilateral government measures to stem exports from China have increasingly been imposed by developing countries, and the fastest among them are members of BRICS.

China’s rapid growth in GDP and manufacturing has come along with growing trade imbalances, in particular in manufacturing. This was in part due to the growing export competitiveness of China’s expanding and increasingly sophisticated manufacturing, itself in part guided by industrial policies such as Made in China 2025.

In recent years, lackluster domestic demand added to the growth in trade surpluses. By 2024, China’s manufacturing trade surpluses stood at 10.6% of China’s GDP. This was about the same as it was just before the global financial crisis, but in terms of global GDP, the surplus in manufacturing of 2024 was almost three times as large, and larger than the combined surpluses of Germany and Japan at their peaks in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

This has added considerably to the trade tensions with other countries, and not just advanced countries.

Data from the Global Trade Alert database show that, in recent years, the number of unilateral government measures to stem exports from China have increasingly been imposed by developing countries.

The number of measures from BRICS (excluding China) countries have been growing fastest since 2022, whereas the number of measures imposed by the US and the European Union against Chinese exports declined in the same period.

Southeast Asian countries, despite most of them also facing bilateral trade deficits with China, have been comparatively more reluctant to impose trade restrictions on China’s exports. One explanation for this could be that China’s investment in Southeast Asia, including in Southeast Asian countries’ manufacturing, has also been rising, and that trade deficits with China reflect growing imports of machinery and intermediary goods to support such manufacturing investments.

[Excerpt based on forthcoming work by Bert Hofman and Chia How Tan.]

Greece
Source: moderndiplomacy.eu

China is accelerating efforts to bolster the circulation and presence of its domestic currency—the yuan—across the African continent through a series of operational and financial initiatives aimed at expanding cross-border trade settlements and banking services.

China is accelerating efforts to bolster the circulation and presence of its domestic currency—the yuan—across the African continent through a series of operational and financial initiatives aimed at expanding cross-border trade settlements and banking services.

– Key Pillars of China’s Operational Initiatives in Africa

1) Expanding Clearing and Payment Networks: China has signed an agreement with the Ecobank Group—which operates in approximately 30 African markets—to facilitate yuan-denominated payments via the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). Furthermore, Stanbic Bank in Kenya has launched services linked to this Chinese payment system, while South Africa’s Standard Bank has taken significant strides toward establishing a joint clearing bank for the Chinese currency.

2) Moving Beyond Basic Trade Settlements: The use of the yuan is no longer limited to settling payments for imports and exports; it has expanded to encompass clearing services, financing, and digital payment instruments.
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3) Tariff Exemptions and Trade Support: China has boosted the volume of bilateral trade by eliminating tariffs on a wide range of African goods. This has encouraged traders and port authorities to adopt the yuan as a direct settlement currency, helping them avoid the volatility associated with the U.S. dollar.

4) Debt Restructuring and Conversion: Several African nations—such as Kenya—have moved to convert a portion of their debt and infrastructure-related loans (specifically those tied to railway projects) from U.S. dollars into yuan, taking advantage of lower interest rates. Additionally, there are plans to issue Panda bonds (yuan-denominated bonds) within capital markets.

5) Transaction Figures and Volume: According to the report on the internationalization of the yuan issued by the People’s Bank of China, the value of cross-border payments and receipts between China and Africa reached approximately 155.3 billion yuan.

– How does the internationalization of the yuan affect foreign exchange reserves in the Arab and African regions?

The internationalization of the Chinese yuan is having a direct and growing impact on the structure of foreign exchange reserves in the Arab and African regions. It reduces the historical reliance on the US dollar and the euro, while encouraging central banks to diversify their assets by holding the yuan to facilitate trade and debt repayment directly with China.

This monetary shift—supported by Beijing’s expansion of clearing networks and the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS)—is reshaping the financial landscape in both regions through the following key mechanisms:

1. Settling bilateral trade in local currencies (de-dollarization)

– Provision of foreign currency: Agreements with institutions such as Ecobank and various central banks (including those of Egypt, Libya, and Saudi Arabia) allow for the settlement of imports from China directly in yuan.

– Easing pressure on the dollar: This direct exchange preserves the dollar reserves—which are often critical for developing nations—allowing them to be used for other international obligations.

2. Debt restructuring and repayment in yuan

– Financial linkage with China: As China is the largest creditor to many African nations, the shift toward the yuan enables central banks to maintain reserves in the Chinese currency, specifically earmarked for debt servicing.

– Reducing double-conversion costs: This avoids the need to convert local currencies into dollars and subsequently into yuan to repay loans, thereby lowering the costs associated with financial intermediation.

3. Asset Diversification and Hedging Against Geopolitical Risks

– An Alternative Monetary Haven: Central banks in the Arab and African regions are holding increasing proportions of the yuan as an official reserve asset to hedge against fluctuations in U.S. interest rates and shocks originating from the West.

– Integration with Chinese Markets: Beijing’s accelerated efforts to allow foreign institutions to trade in its financial markets are encouraging Arab and African central banks to invest their reserves in Chinese government bonds denominated in yuan.

◇ Comparing the Impact of Yuan Internationalization Across the Two Regions



– Key Challenges and Hidden Risks

1) Capital Account Restrictions: China’s lack of full flexibility regarding the convertibility of the yuan and the free flow of capital across its borders hinders its transition into a truly global reserve currency.

2) Redistribution of External Dependence: Analysts argue that a complete shift in Africa could merely replace reliance on dollar channels with reliance on yuan channels, rather than achieving genuine monetary independence.

1) Trade invoicing and tariff incentives (concrete policy conditions—regulatory requirements—trade mechanics in Beijing pairing with the May 1, 2026, zero customs duty frame to incentivize African exporters and sovereign entities to invoice and settle bilateral trade directly in Chinese yuan rather than US dollar?

– China’s practical initiative to promote the adoption of the yuan in Africa incentives concerning trade invoicing and customs tariffs (comprising concrete policy conditions, regulatory requirements, and trade mechanisms coordinated with Beijing, coinciding with a tariff-elimination framework that takes effect on May 1, 2026; the objective is to encourage African exporters and sovereign entities to invoice and settle bilateral trade directly in Chinese yuan, rather than in U.S. dollars).

– China’s practical initiative to promote the internationalization of the yuan in Africa will enter a critical phase, coinciding with the implementation of a tariff-elimination framework effective May 1, 2026. This dual mechanism aims to link preferential trade benefits directly to the adoption of the yuan (RMB) for bilateral invoicing and settlement, thereby reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar.

The incentives, policy conditions, and regulatory requirements of this initiative—coordinated between Beijing and African stakeholders—are structured as follows:

1. Concrete Policy Conditions and Customs Benefits

■ Comprehensive Exemption Subject to Rules of Origin: The framework grants a full customs exemption (zero tariffs) to 53 African nations (excluding Eswatini). Beijing mandates compliance with strict rules of origin and rigorous product-tracking procedures to ensure that goods are not re-exported from countries outside the continent. Direct Cost Reductions (Invoice Discounts): Chinese firms and importers offer discounts and preferential pricing terms to African exporters who agree to issue letters of credit and invoices in the Chinese yuan (CNY).

■ Priority Customs Clearance (Green Channel): Shipments and companies that utilize direct settlement in the Chinese currency are granted access to expedited processing lanes and streamlined customs procedures at Chinese ports, helping to accelerate supply chains.

2. Regulatory Requirements and Mechanisms in Coordination with Beijing

■ Mandatory Integration with the CIPS System: The initiative requires African central and commercial banks to join the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), China’s alternative to the SWIFT network—either as direct or indirect participants.

■ Expansion of Local Clearing Facilities: The establishment and expansion of official yuan clearing banks in regional economic hubs, such as Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, and Angola, to provide necessary liquidity without the need for transactions to pass through the U.S. dollar.

■ Currency Swap Agreements: The activation of currency swap agreements—signed between African central banks and the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)—to facilitate direct access to the yuan for local exporters and importers, thereby mitigating the risks associated with exchange rate volatility.

How does the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) operate in the region and in Africa?
In the Middle East and Africa, the Chinese Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) functions through a mechanism for direct settlement in Chinese Yuan (RMB). It serves as a financial alternative that reduces reliance on the U.S. dollar and the traditional SWIFT network. This mechanism is expanding rapidly, driven by major trade partnerships and the Belt and Road Initiative.

– The operational mechanisms of CIPS in the region and Africa can be summarized, as follows:

1. Participation Structure (Direct and Indirect)

The system operates through two tiers of membership, connecting local banks to the Chinese network:

A) Direct Participants: Major banks, often state-owned Chinese banks with regional branches, large regional institutions, such as Standard Bank and Ecobank in Africa, or prominent banks from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, maintain direct settlement and clearing accounts with CIPS.

B) Indirect Participants: Smaller local banks that lack a direct connection to the system but execute their Yuan-denominated transactions through accounts held with major banks (the direct participants).

2. Hybrid Settlement and Clearing Mechanism

The system utilizes advanced technology to ensure high efficiency and speed:

A) Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS): Used for large-value or high-priority financial transactions, where settlements are processed immediately in real time.

B) Deferred Net Settlement (DNS): Used for small-scale retail commercial transactions, where payments are bundled and cleared as a single batch to alleviate liquidity pressure.

3. Technical Compatibility and Messaging Standards

A) CIPS is based on the international standard ISO 20022 for financial messaging, the same modern standard adopted by global banks.

B) This compatibility allows banks in Africa and the Middle East to seamlessly integrate the system into their existing infrastructure, without the need for complex software modifications.

C) The system covers a broad range of time zones, ensuring that the needs of regional and African markets are met around the clock.

4. Direct Trade Settlement and Avoiding Dollar Volatility

A) Eliminating Intermediary Currencies: In the traditional system, importing goods from China requires converting a local currency, such as the Egyptian pound or the Kenyan shilling, into US dollars and subsequently converting those dollars into Chinese yuan. Through CIPS, settlement occurs directly from the local currency to the yuan.

B) Mitigating Foreign Exchange Shortages: African and regional nations are facing a scarcity of US dollars, such as Tunisia and Egypt, and others; they’re benefiting from using the yuan directly to pay for substantial Chinese imports, thereby easing the strain on their US dollar reserves.

5. Expansion via Regional Partners (Real-World Examples)

A) In Africa: Standard Bank Group (the largest African bank by assets) and Ecobank Group (which operates in 34 African countries) have become key gateways connecting the continent to the Chinese system, facilitating the settlement of hundreds of millions of dollars in trade directly in yuan.

B) In the Gulf region: China has established yuan clearing centers in cooperation with central banks (such as those of the UAE and Saudi Arabia) to build a financial infrastructure that enables the secure settlement of energy and trade transactions in the yuan.

– List of Major African Banks That Have Officially Joined China’s CIPS System:

The African continent is witnessing a significant acceleration in joining China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), aimed at facilitating direct commercial transactions in Chinese yuan and reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar.

□ The following are some of the prominent African institutions and banks that have officially joined the system or signed operational agreements with it:

– Standard Bank Group: The first African commercial bank to integrate directly with the CIPS system (beginning in late 2025). It has since expanded and activated the service across its subsidiaries in several African countries, including Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, and Namibia.

– Ecobank Group: A major pan-African banking group operating in 34 sub-Saharan African countries. In October 2026, the group officially signed a memorandum of understanding to join the system directly, enabling it to provide yuan clearing and settlement services to its clients on a large scale.

– African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank): A multilateral-regional financial institution that has officially joined as a direct participant to support Africa’s intra-regional and international trade, bypassing traditional channels.

– Attijariwafa Bank: The first Moroccan bank to officially join the CIPS system (in October 2026), allowing its corporate clients in Morocco to make direct and rapid payments to Chinese suppliers in Chinese yuan.

– Bank of Kigali: The largest commercial bank in Rwanda officially announced its transition to becoming a direct participant in the system by September 2026 to facilitate trade.

– Central Bank of Libya: In July 2026, the official administration of the Central Bank of Libya reached an agreement with the People’s Bank of China to connect Libyan banks to the CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System), enabling the settlement of payments and direct financial transfers, as well as the development of a framework for joint investment.

3. Mechanisms for Encouraging Sovereign Entities and Exporters

■ Payment of Taxes and Mining Royalties in Yuan: African nations allow Chinese-invested companies to pay government fees, mining royalties, and taxes in the Chinese yuan. This provides African governments with a sovereign reserve of the currency, which can be used to settle their debts with Beijing directly in yuan.

■ Financing and Refinancing Incentives: Chinese development banks, such as the Export-Import Bank of China, offer concessional loans to sovereign entities, contingent upon the settlement of a portion of the associated infrastructure and trade contracts in yuan. This helps to narrow the gap in demand for hard currency.

– The Structure of the Trade Deficit Between China and Africa and Its Impact on the Availability of Yuan Liquidity.

The trade deficit between Africa and China is characterized by a chronic structural imbalance that heavily favors Beijing. During the first eight months of 2026, Africa’s trade deficit with China surged by 34.48%, reaching $80.07 billion. This imbalance not only hinders African growth but has also become a primary driver for increasing the liquidity of the Chinese yuan and its penetration into African financial systems, serving as a necessary alternative in the face of a shortage of U.S. dollars.

– The structure of this deficit and its direct relationship to yuan liquidity can be broken down, as follows:

v First: The Structure of the Trade Imbalance (What does Africa sell, and what does it buy?)

1) African exports with low value-added: Most African exports to China consist of raw materials, minerals, oil, and energy (as seen in exports from Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia). These commodities are subject to global price volatility and fail to generate industrial value locally.

2) Chinese inflows with high consumer and technological value: Conversely, China supplies African markets with manufactured goods, heavy equipment, and technological products, most notably green technology and machinery. As Western protectionism—along with U.S. and European tariffs on Chinese goods—has intensified, Beijing has redirected its massive production surplus toward the African continent.

3) Limited Scope of Customs Exemptions: Although China announced the elimination of tariffs for 53 African nations—set to take full effect by May 2026—the primary beneficiaries remain countries with well-developed infrastructure, such as South Africa and Egypt. Meanwhile, landlocked nations are unable to capitalize on these exemptions due to their limited manufacturing and logistical capabilities.

v Second: The Impact of the Trade Deficit on Yuan Liquidity in Africa

Contrary to the conventional economic view that a trade deficit drains liquidity, Africa’s trade deficit with China has created a paradox: it has actually fostered an abundance of Yuan liquidity, driven by several mechanisms:

1) A Safe Haven Amid the Dollar Crunch: African central banks, such as those in Lusaka, Luanda, and Accra, have faced severe shortages of US dollar reserves. As African nations are compelled to import goods from China to meet their needs, Beijing has offered the yuan as a financial alternative, effectively signaling, “You do not need US dollars to purchase from us; use the yuan you earn from selling your minerals.” Consequently, the Yuan has evolved from a mere foreign currency into a liquidity lifeline for daily operations.

2) Establishment of Direct Financial Channels and Clearing Systems: To facilitate the flow of this liquidity, the People’s Bank of China has designated major banking groups to manage Yuan clearing across the continent—notably Standard Bank, which operates in 19 African countries, and Ecobank, present in 34 countries, both utilizing China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). This has enabled the direct settlement of transactions, bypassing the need for intermediary conversions via the US dollar or the Western SWIFT payment network.

3) Debt Inversion: Financial relations have entered a new historical phase, with African nations now paying more to China—in the form of loan principal and interest—than they receive in new Chinese financing. To service these debts without depleting their dollar reserves, countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia have begun turning to yuan-based debt swaps, while Zambia has started accepting the yuan as payment for mining revenues, a practice that further facilitates the circulation of the Chinese currency within local economies.

In summary, persistent African trade deficits are directly fueling the regionalization and internationalization of the yuan. African partners find themselves compelled to integrate the Chinese currency into their banking systems to ensure the continuity of supply chains and to circumvent the high costs associated with dollar-denominated debt.

2) Bilateral currency swaps and sovereign credit facilities: How is the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) utilizing bilateral currency swap arrangements, RMB-denominated sovereign lending, and debt restructuring terms to inject yuan liquidity into African banking sectors and encourage its domestic circulation?

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) employs an integrated financial strategy that links sovereign debt management with the internationalization of the Chinese currency (the yuan), leveraging the dollar-shortage crisis currently affecting emerging markets in Africa. This mechanism transforms instances of financial distress into channels for injecting yuan-denominated liquidity and establishing China’s banking infrastructure across the continent.

1. Bilateral Currency Swaps: Lines of Financial Defense

Currency swap agreements established between the PBOC and African central banks (such as those in Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa) serve a dual purpose:

A) Providing emergency liquidity: These agreements allow African central banks to obtain yuan in exchange for their local currencies, eliminating the need to liquidate their scarce dollar reserves.

B) Facilitating direct trade: African central banks inject this liquidity into their domestic banking sectors, enabling local importers to purchase Chinese goods directly in yuan. This reduces currency conversion costs and lessens reliance on the U.S. dollar as an intermediary.

2. Debt Reprofiling as a Strategic Transformation Tool

As African nations face acute pressure in servicing dollar-denominated debt, the PBOC and Chinese financial institutions are reshaping debt terms through:

A) Yuan-denominated restructuring: Converting existing loans from U.S. dollars into Chinese yuan, a process seen in the restructuring of railway loans in Kenya, as well as in similar negotiations with Ethiopia and Mozambique.

B) Reducing Financing Costs: The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) leverages the historically low interest-rate environment for the yuan compared to the US dollar. This lowers interest rates on loans extended to borrowing nations—for instance, in Kenya, the rate dropped from 4% to 3% following the conversion—in exchange for the countries’ commitment to repay in Chinese currency.

3. Sovereign Lending and Liquidity Circulation via Banking Infrastructure

The PBOC does not merely inject yuan into these economies; it ensures the currency remains within the Chinese financial ecosystem through two mechanisms:

A) Linking Yuan-Denominated Loans to Procurement: New sovereign credit facilities are denominated in the yuan and are contingent upon the financing of projects executed by Chinese firms. Consequently, liquidity flows out of China only to return as commercial profits.

B) Developing an African Clearing Network (CIPS): The African banking sector is being integrated into the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS)—a Chinese alternative to the SWIFT system. For example, Standard Bank—Africa’s largest bank by assets—has been designated as a yuan clearing bank across 19 African nations, facilitating rapid, localized trading of the currency within the continent.

– Illustrative Table: The Economic Impact of Chinese Instruments in Africa

Financial instrument
Direct Impact
Its impact on the African banking sector
The strategic objective of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)
Currency swaps (swaps)
Exchanging the yuan for the local currency
Reduces pressure on dollar reserves
Creates permanent reserve liquidity lines in yuan
Debt currency conversion
Debt clearing from dollars to yuan
Reduced annual debt servicing costs
Conversion of future financial claims to yuan
Linking payment technologies
Mandatory use of the CIPS network
Settlement of transactions with China within minutes
building a parallel financial system independent of American dominance

– Volume of Currently Active Currency Swap Agreements Between China and Countries in North and West Africa

Currency swap agreements currently in effect between China and countries in North and West Africa are concentrated in two key nations that are spearheading this trend in the region. The total announced volume of these active agreements amounts to approximately 45 billion Chinese yuan (equivalent to about 6.6 billion US dollars), distributed as follows:

1. North Africa (Arab Republic of Egypt)

A) Current agreement volume: 30 billion Chinese yuan (equivalent to about 4.43 billion US dollars).

B) Status: The agreement has been renewed and expanded for an additional three years. Its ceiling has been increased by 67%, rising from the 18 billion yuan level established when it was first signed in 2016.

C) Objective: To facilitate trade and financial settlements in local currencies and alleviate pressure on conventional foreign exchange reserves.

2. West Africa (Federal Republic of Nigeria)

Current agreement volume: 15 billion Chinese yuan (equivalent to about 2.4 billion US dollars).

A) Status: The agreement signed between the Central Bank of Nigeria and the People’s Bank of China is currently active. It aims to provide liquidity to Nigerian importers and Chinese companies,
enabling them to settle transactions directly without the need for intermediation in US dollars.

B) Prospects for Expansion in West and North Africa:

– Morocco and Tunisia: Memoranda of understanding and general framework agreements exist to promote the use of the yuan; however, these have yet to evolve into substantial, direct currency swap lines in a structural sense. Countries like Morocco, for instance, continue to rely on commercial banking channels to access the renminbi.

– Integration with the CIPS System: In parallel with these arrangements, the region is witnessing a surge in major banks joining the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), a Chinese payment infrastructure. Examples include the Ecobank Group (headquartered in Togo and operating across West Africa) and GCB Bank in Ghana, which have joined to facilitate direct clearing in yuan, serving as a complement to existing swap mechanisms.

A quick comparison of active swap agreements in the two regions

• Focusing on the analytical aspect: To what extent do African governments benefit from these credit lines for debt settlement?

Financial and geopolitical analysis of sovereign debt management in Africa reveals that the use of credit lines, whether bilateral (such as those from China) or multilateral (from institutions like the IMF or the World Bank) for debt settlement is both conditional and short-term. Often, what begins as a solution transforms into a mechanism for postponing the crisis, ultimately deepening structural dependency.

■ To analyze this landscape accurately, the nature and extent of these benefits, can be broken down into the following aspects:

1. Temporary Flexibility and the Avoidance of Default (Immediate Benefit)
2. Alleviating Urgent Liquidity Crises: New credit lines, such as Chinese refinancing loans or the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility, provide African governments with the foreign currency necessary to repay maturing sovereign bonds or interest on existing debt. This averts a worst-case scenario: a formal sovereign default, which could lead to a country’s isolation from international financial markets and a downgrade in its credit rating.

• Debt Swapping: Some nations have benefited by replacing short-term commercial debt – which often carries extremely high interest rates (sometimes reaching 55% in private markets) – with bilateral or multilateral credit lines. These alternatives typically offer lower interest rates and longer repayment periods, providing the national budget with a short-term reprieve.
• The Dilemma of Postponing the Crisis and Increasing Cumulative Costs (The Structural Downside)

1. The Accumulation of Compounding Interest: Most debt settlement operations involving credit lines do not entail a genuine reduction of the principal debt, rather, they rely on rescheduling and extending repayment periods, such as (China’s debt-service suspension initiatives or programs offered by the IMF). Analytically, this means that governments are effectively buying time at the expense of higher cumulative costs, as interest continues to accrue, thereby increasing the long-term debt burden.

• Depletion of Domestic Resources and Export Chains: Given that African economies rely heavily on the export of raw materials with low value-added, directing credit lines toward debt settlement – instead of productive investment – creates a structural gap. Consequently, the nation becomes unable to generate sufficient dollar-denominated revenue to keep pace with the rising costs.
• Analytical Comparison of Available Credit Line Mechanisms

• Case studies of specific African countries that have either struggled or succeeded in utilizing such credit lines (e.g., Zambia, Ghana, or Kenya)

The case studies of Zambia, Ghana, and Kenya reveal significant variations in how these nations have managed financial crises, restructured debt, and addressed deficits through credit lines and international programs, supported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the G20 Common Framework:

1. Zambia: From Prolonged Default to Post-Restructuring Success

Zambia was the first African nation to default on its sovereign debt following the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, leading to complex, years-long negotiations:

• Cause of Default: An accumulation of commercial and Chinese debt – incurred to fund infrastructure projects- compounded by severe economic pressures.
• Turning Point (2024–2026): After a long and arduous process, Zambia successfully reached a landmark debt-restructuring agreement covering over $13 billion. This included securing deals with official creditors, China, and holders of its Eurobonds.
• Current Status and Success: Zambia has transitioned from a state of default to active debt management. The country’s external debt decreased by 5% in the first half of 2026, and the restructuring helped provide liquidity, injecting more than $11.5 billion into the national economy. Credit rating agencies, such as (S&P and Fitch) have upgraded Zambia’s sovereign rating; meanwhile, inflation has begun to decline, and the local currency (the kwacha) has stabilized.

1. Ghana: A Model of Rapid Recovery and Fiscal Discipline

In late 2022, Ghana defaulted on most of its external debt following a severe liquidity crisis and record-high inflation that exceeded 50%.

• Resolution Mechanism: Ghana implemented an Extended Credit Facility (ECF) program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) valued at $3 billion. The government first executed a bold Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) in 2023, followed by a comprehensive restructuring agreement for its international bonds (Eurobonds) in late 2024.
• Current Status and Success: Ghana has reached the final, full stages of its external debt restructuring program, having settled the last remaining components (such as the SADEREA medical-related bonds). The IMF has completed the sixth and final review of its financing program. Economic indicators for 2025/2026 have shown significant improvement: inflation has declined sharply, and international reserves have doubled to approximately $11.9 billion. This has paved the way for Ghana’s gradual return to domestic and international capital markets through the issuance of long-term bonds.

1. Kenya: A Case of Critical Sustainability and Social Unrest

Kenya represents a complex case study, while it has not formally defaulted on its bonds, it faces a high risk of default and immense financing pressures. As follows:

• Strategic Challenge: Kenya has relied on successive credit programs from the IMF to finance its deficit and meet maturing obligations, such as (Eurobond repayments). The Fund’s conditions included the implementation of strict austerity measures and tax increases aimed at reducing the budget deficit.

Social and Political Unrest: These fiscal policies – mandated as part of the financing programs – triggered a wave of widespread popular protests led by young people. This forced the government to rescind certain financial laws and ease spending pressures.

• Current Situation: Kenya and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have canceled the final review of a $3.6 billion credit support program. The government is aiming to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio to below 55% by 2028 to ensure long-term sustainability. While the IMF and the World Bank classify Kenya’s debt as sustainable, they also categorize the country as being at a high risk of debt distress. Consequently, the government is struggling to strike a balance between fiscal responsibility and social stability.
• Summary of the comparison

● Analytical Summary

The true benefit African governments derive from credit lines for debt restructuring remains limited unless accompanied by a comprehensive strategy for economic diversification, mobilizing domestic resources, and establishing independent rating agencies such as an African Credit Rating Agency to reduce the high borrowing costs imposed on the continent unfairly compared to other regions. Without these reforms, credit lines remain merely a tool for issuing new loans to pay off old ones, keeping the continent trapped in a vicious cycle of financial dependency.

United Kingdom
Source: www.kcl.ac.uk

Late in the Covid pandemic, Lord Jim O’Neill and Mario Monti, the former Italian prime minister, had an idea they were pleased with.

For a World Health Organization commission, they proposed that finance and health ministers meet four times a year, modelled on the board the G20 created after the financial crisis to keep big banks safe. Otherwise, he says, finance ministries hear of a health threat on the evening news and spend 10 to 50 times what prevention would have cost. The G7 backed the idea. Italy, chairing the G20 in 2021, made it a priority. Then, after the last round of summit preparations, word came back. The BRICS countries had killed it.

Everyone looked at the man who had coined the acronym. When O’Neill asked advisers in China and other member states why, the answer stayed with him. This was yet another Western idea they were expected to adopt. If they belonged in the G20, they wanted a say in what it decided.

O’Neill told the story at King’s College London on 19 October, opening the Lau China Institute’s sixth China Week in conversation with Deng. It is why, he said, he bought into her idea for BRICS+ Thinking, the policy platform they launched this year.

Twenty-five years after O’Neill coined BRIC at Goldman Sachs, China and India are the only big economies to have beaten the bank’s forecasts. Brazil and Russia have slipped back to the share of world output they had when he started. He expects the economic centre of gravity to keep moving east, helped more and more by India.

He worries about China’s economy too. Its current account surplus is climbing again, back to the share of world GDP it reached around the financial crisis, which he calls unhealthy for everyone else and unsustainable for China.

China Week-Jim and Gemma
Gemma Deng in conversation with Lord O'Neill
Global governance, O’Neill says, was always the point. His first paper, so often read as investment advice, argued that eurozone countries should give up their separate seats in global institutions to make room for newcomers. What came instead was the G20 leaders’ summit of 2008, whose first four years he rates as perhaps the only good thing to happen to global economic governance in 25 years. It has since lost its way. Nor does he spare the BRICS, whose annual summits, in his view, produce grand statements and little action.

Deng’s case starts closer to home. Interviewing senior policymakers for her doctorate, she was told by one security official that Britain’s knowledge of China would fit on the back of a stamp. Western think tanks talk about China by formula, she argues, nothing consistently links university expertise to decision-making, and the rest of the world is rarely heard. BRICS+ Thinking brings academics from the global south and north together to agree policy proposals.

O’Neill, who once called a BRICS currency ludicrous, is co-writing its paper on a BRICS payment system. Replacing the dollar needs open capital markets that most members do not want. A payments system for trade in goods, alongside the dollar, is different. Technology makes it easy if politicians want it. India appears to be coming round. It is no rival to the dollar, he says, at least not for decades.

Britain chairs the G20 next year, a chance, O’Neill says, to decide what it wants from the world after Brexit. Asked how middle powers can deal with Beijing, he recalled Treasury officials, in his brief spell as a minister, pressing China to issue a huge renminbi bond in London. China had reserves to spare. To be taken seriously, he says, start from their interests.

On the explanation he was given, the health plan died because the countries it needed were told rather than asked.

Russia
Source: eng.globalaffairs.ru

Hriday Ch. Sarma
Indian lawyer, independent researcher in energy policies in Greater Eurasia

Yuliya S. Kharitonova
Doctor of Law, Head of the Scientific and Educational Centre for Legal Research on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy at the Faculty of Law, Moscow State University

Russia’s revised list of states offering “adequate” protection of personal data came into force on 30 October 2026, following Roskomnadzor’s Order #253, which excluded Ukraine and the U.S. but retained China and India. Moscow has thus recognized the validity of the data regimes of its two major trading partners for its own transfer rules. New Delhi and Beijing maintain no comparable list of recognized destinations, and nothing connects their regimes to each other. Digital cooperation within the Russia-India-China (RIC) triangle is arranged individually among them, without a shared regulations framework.

RIC does not need a common data law and is unlikely to get one. It needs a few connection points where sovereignty is least contested and verification matters most: business identity, trade documents, and payment messages. Three sovereign systems can exchange proofs long before they exchange datasets.

The regimes differ in method more than purpose. India’s 2023 Digital Personal Data Protection Act empowers the Centre under Section 16 to restrict transfers to notified destinations, while Rule 15 of the Rules notified in November 2025 provides for conditions on making personal data available to foreign states or their agencies. The provisions have phased commencement arrangements. Russia reverses the logic. Under Russian Federal Law #152-FZ, cross-border transfers are subject to notification and other requirements that depend on the destination and applicable rules. Since 1 July 2025, Federal Law #23-FZ has also strengthened data localization requirements. China provides state-supervised transfer mechanisms under Article 38 of its Personal Information Protection Law, including security assessment, standard-contract and certification routes where applicable. Thus, the regimes differ but have one logic: each system conditions transfers on safeguards. Mutual recognition can be built on those safeguards without pretending that the laws are identical.

Yet interoperability breaks in the lower stack. Russian electronic signatures operate under Federal Law #63-FZ and national cryptographic and trust-service requirements. China’s Cryptography Law, in force since 1 January 2020, regulates commercial cryptography and provides for testing and certification in specified circumstances. India’s Controller of Certifying Authorities oversees licensed certifying authorities and recognized electronic-signature mechanisms. Without a recognition arrangement, a signature produced under one national standard cannot automatically be assumed to verify or carry the same legal effect in another. Identity is no easier. Russia’s rules for .ru domain registrants and its domestic identity infrastructure illustrate the barriers that foreign firms without local presence may face. China’s national online identity authentication service, introduced under the 2025 Administrative Measures and operational since 15 July 2025, enables users to obtain a network identity number (wanghao) and an identity credential (wangzheng) for online identity verification, with provisions designed to limit unnecessary disclosure of personal information.

Reporting deadlines also differ by incident type, entity, and legal obligation.

China, Russia, and India impose cybersecurity or data-incident reporting requirements, but their triggers, recipients, and timelines are not interchangeable. A corridor does not need to wait for statutes to converge. Its participants could adopt a common operational protocol for prompt notification, escalation, and evidence preservation while continuing to meet every applicable domestic deadline.

The remedy is in changing the proofs rather than files, starting with legal entities and cargo, not citizens: a company’s registration, a customs clearance, or a payment authorization. Each state can issue an attestation from its own register under its own law, allowing a counterparty to verify it without receiving the underlying records. A document could carry three signatures, each validated under its national regulations and recognized through agreed procedures. The UNCITRAL Model Law on the Use and Cross-Border Recognition of Identity Management and Trust Services, adopted in July 2022, offers a neutral basis for recognizing foreign trust services based on reliability. Russia-China cooperation on tax administration and electronic document management, alongside expanding Russia-India settlements in national currencies, provides practical grounds for exploring trusted digital proofs, although these initiatives do not themselves establish mutual recognition.

BRICS provides a broader political context. Its 2025 trade discussions and the Rio de Janeiro Declaration support cooperation in the digital economy and address emerging technologies within national frameworks. The New Delhi Declaration of 12 September 2026 calls for a “sovereign and self-reliant digital ecosystem” and supports continued work on interoperability among payment and messaging channels, while acknowledging that no single approach fits every member. Payments already have a dedicated task force; data cooperation could benefit from a similarly practical mechanism. China’s BRICS chairmanship in 2027 offers an opportunity to advance this work and secure agreement among the members.

An India-Russia-China Digital Interoperability Framework should therefore be not a treaty but a recognition protocol, where sequence matters.

Work should begin with regulatory mapping: each government should publish, in a common machine-readable format, which classes of data it treats as freely transferable, conditional or restricted, explaining differences among national categories. Then the safeguards should be mapped, comparing Russia’s adequacy list, India’s transfer restrictions, and China’s transfer mechanisms.

A model transfer clause could identify the safeguards required under each applicable regime, supported by records that authorized regulators can inspect. Pilot corridors should follow in customs and trade finance, with use cases narrowly defined and existing audit trails expanded to logistics and manufacturing. Only after the pilot corridors demonstrate reliability should the parties standardize identity and transaction formats and take the package to BRICS.

Today, none of this assumes trust. India blocked 59 mostly Chinese apps in June 2020, and its March 2026 easing of Press Note 3 for selected manufacturing sectors retained security screening. The RIC foreign ministers’ last meeting was held by video in November 2021, and Delhi has remained cautious about calls to revive the format. That is why the framework should rest on verifiable instruments, not goodwill. The pilot test could involve one cargo’s customs documents moving between a Russian port, an Indian exporter, and a Chinese buyer, with each party able to validate the required signatures and trace the transaction. If it works, the next stage should be its carefully governed expansion. If it fails, the parties will at least know which legal, technical, or institutional barrier needs to be addressed

Russia
Source: valdaiclub.com

Storm at Sea: Russian Naval Strategy in a Lawless Age

The decay of international law at sea is a challenge that Russia cannot afford to leave unaddressed. While rules and norms that govern the world’s seas are increasingly cast aside, the rising importance of the Asia-Pacific prompts Moscow to shift its maritime centre of gravity to the Far East, writes Maxim Shepovalenko, Deputy Director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST). This opinion piece was prepared for the presentation of the Valdai Club’s report “The Unfreedom of Navigation?”

Modern international law as a whole, and the law of the sea in particular, derive from the Yalta-Potsdam world order, which is now in serious crisis and in a state of degradation.

Sanctions imposed in circumvention of the UN Security Council, seizures and interceptions of merchant ships on the high seas, naval blockades, acts of piracy involving naval and aerial drones, the freezing and confiscation of assets, the arrest of aircraft, and many other unilateral unfriendly acts (not to say acts of aggression) show that international law is lying in a coma rather than alive and developing.

Hence the modus operandi of a number of leading global and regional actors: whoever puts on the white coat first is the doctor. These actors simply impose their own rules of the game by fait accompli, in defiance of both the letter and the spirit of international law. The United States, together with its allies and friendly states, has been especially adept at all of this.

In these circumstances, the Russian Federation and its military (the naval component above all) face what seem to be the same tasks as before, but accomplishing them calls for non-trivial solutions.

Let me remind you of the tasks, the four paramount ones:

• keeping the naval strategic nuclear forces at permanent readiness in the interests of nuclear deterrence;
• defending the exclusive economic zone and areas of industrial activity, and suppressing illegal industrial activity;
• ensuring the safety of shipping;
• carrying out the government’s foreign policy actions in economically important areas of the world's oceans (official visits, business calls, joint exercises, operations as part of peacekeeping forces, and so on).

The first task concerns the two ocean-going fleets—the Northern and Pacific Fleets—while the other three concern all four fleets and the one flotilla.

What makes them non-trivial? In our specific Russian case, it is a combination of two factors. On the one hand, we must project naval power at an ever greater distance from the coast (in the distant sea and ocean zones, that is, 500 nautical miles and beyond). On the other, in the near sea and coastal zones (that is, within 500 nautical miles), the forces and assets at our disposal are dwindling catastrophically, through both natural ageing and combat losses. The operational strain on the fleet’s forces keeps growing, yet the fleet—with the possible exception of the naval component of the strategic nuclear forces—has long been the Cinderella of the armed forces. Then again, there is nothing surprising in that: in Russia’s military history, the fleet has never been the decisive factor in victory in armed confrontation and struggle against foreign states.

Added to this is a general uncertainty about the direction of naval construction: what to build, to accomplish which tasks, and how to employ it, given the radically changed character of armed confrontation in all its spheres. I have no doubt that all the leading naval powers are racking their brains over the same questions.

Freedom of navigation is the foundation on which the entire subsequent legal superstructure rests—the 1982 Convention and the other international agreements and treaties governing activity in the World Ocean. The erosion of this foundation will inevitably mean that no single, universal set of rules of conduct for States will remain in this domain. Whether such legal chaos serves the interests of the collective West is not a rhetorical question.

Now to the economic dimension of Russia’s maritime activity. The naval component of the Russian state’s military organisation does cope with ensuring the security of coastal merchant shipping, inshore fishing, and offshore oil and gas production. But protecting deep-sea fishing and long-haul maritime shipping is a substantial problem. This is mainly down to the small number of ships—specifically, first- and second-rank ships designed to operate in the distant sea and ocean zones. Individual task groups of warships do go out on combat duty from time to time (one or two combat units and the same number of auxiliary vessels), but this is a far cry from a full-fledged formation with any real staying power against modern means of attack.

In these circumstances, it is clearly necessary to harness the potential of private maritime security companies. Many BRICS countries have them, Russia included. And since a number of experts regard BRICS as a potential alternative to the existing but dying world order, it would be reasonable to shift the centre of gravity of work on ensuring freedom of navigation to this domain, using both multilateral and bilateral formats. The regulatory and legal side of private maritime security companies’ activity has been developed to a certain extent by the International Maritime Organization, so there is something to build on.

The centre of gravity (Schwerpunkt) of both naval potential, including the naval strategic nuclear forces, and the merchant fleet, including the work of seaports, must shift to the Far East, for it is there that we do not face such significant geographical constraints as in the European part of the country (meaning the strait zones and anti-submarine lines). With the exception, perhaps, of the Sea of Japan, in the Far East we have direct access to the ocean—the largest ocean on the planet.

In light of the above, and in the context of the declared theme of the discussion, it is high time we gave thought to the practical aspects of maintaining and strengthening the legal regime governing the Northern Sea Route, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of Okhotsk.