https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_BRICS_summit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_BRICS
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS
https://brics.br/en/news/brics-gdp-outperforms-global-average-accounts-for-40-of-world-economy
https://aggrp.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Analysis-Report-BRICS-2025-August-2025.pdf
But
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-how-brics-stacks-up-against-the-g7-economies/
https://www.habtoorresearch.com/programmes/brics-summit-2025/
https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/10/25/brics-multipolar-aspirations-navigate-asymmetries-of-power/
http://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0109/c90000-20263624.html
https://www.csis.org/blogs/latest-southeast-asia/latest-southeast-asia-indonesia-joins-brics
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/joining-brics-indonesia-sticks-with-multi-alignment-strategy/
https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/02/04/indonesias-bold-step-into-brics-and-beyond/
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-brics-group-and-why-it-expanding
https://www.stimson.org/2025/2025-brics-summit-takeaways-and-projections/
https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/se-un-brics-non-fa-primavera-143447
from 2023 but covers some of the main points
https://claws.co.in/brics-vs-g7-can-they-truly-be-compared/ perhaps
the basis for an essay
also
good https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/brics-summit-emerging-middle-powers-g7-g20?lang=en
and this is a good summary
of the positive aspects of the BRICS+ group, although it needs to be balanced
by a more critical analysis https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/brics-enlargement-and-shifting-world-order
but
remember
https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/31533560504257
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-how-brics-stacks-up-against-the-g7-economies/
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/brics-enlargement-and-shifting-world-order
from last year, this is a
good summary of the positive aspects of the BRICS+ group, although it needs to
be balanced by a more critical analysis.
Some
points made at the SIOI conference, 15 December 2023,’The
BRICS+ and
multilateralism’
Intra-BRICS trade is still relatively
low, although they all do a lot of trade with China. The BRICS+ recognize the
need to strengthen it and overcome existing barriers https://www.bricsforum.in/media-center/news/brics-virtual-summit-strengthens-push-for-intra-bloc-trade-amid-global-protectionism-26
FDIs towards the BRICS are mainly from the West and China.
De-dollarization
(in favour of a new reserve currency, or the Chinese currency or trading mainly
in the currencies of the group) would make them less open to Western sanctions,
fluctuations in the value of the dollar and changes in the interest rate on their
public debts. However, it hasn’t happened yet and seems hard to achieve. Most
trade in a reserve currency is still in dollars with a slight growth in trade
in the Euro.
There’s a need to change the voting rights quotas at the IMF.
The New Development Bank is not as powerful as the IMF and mainly deals with
economic programs between the members rather than with the poor countries of
the Global South.
The BRICS still have no real institutional structure as an international
organization or founding treaty but regular meetings and cooperation in many
fields.
Is there a kind of irreversible competition or a decoupling (or a new Cold War)
between the BRICS and the G7 (the West/G7+)? Not really, this division was real
in the Cold War, not now. There’s an interdependence in economic terms and in
many others.
So do the BRICS represent a new order or disorder or a fragmentation of the
existing international order? Can the BRICS+ help to reverse this fragmentation
or will they accelerate it?
The main historic change in GDP terms is China’s economic expansion and to some
extent India’s, not that of the others. In PPP terms, however, the total GDP of
the BRICS+ as a percentage of global GDP PPP is now significantly larger than
that of the G7, so the economic institutions need to be reformed to reflect
this.
Last BRICS
summit declarations
link to text
to download https://brics.br/en/documents/presidency-documents/250705-brics-leaders-declaration-en.pdf
China and
Africa
https://africacenter.org/spotlight/china-united-front-africa/
India and
Africa
https://www.cii.in/International_ResearchPDF/India%20Africa%20Report%202025.pdf
Russia and
Africa
https://aecweek.com/russia-expands-energy-partnerships-across-africa-to-meet-rising-demand/
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/18/africa/russia-expanding-influence-in-africa-intl-cmd
https://www.pressenza.com/2025/08/south-africa-continues-playing-russian-roulette/
The EU and the
BRICS
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2024/760368/EPRS_BRI(2024)760368_EN.pdf
https://infobrics.org/en/post/66517
https://bst-europe.eu/europe-in-the-world/brics-summit-highlights-need-to-improve-strategic-eu-global-south-ties/
The old BRICS economies
https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/economy/asia-pacific/india-economic-outlook.html
https://www.bbvaresearch.com/en/publicaciones/china-economic-outlook-september-2025/
https://www.bbvaresearch.com/en/publicaciones/brazil-economic-outlook-october-2025/
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/10/14/imf-cuts-russias-2025-economic-forecast-again-a90809
BRICS cooperation
https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/brics-summit-emerging-middle-powers-g7-g20?lang=en
good balanced view
https://carleton.ca/eetn/2025/the-2025-brics-summit-divisions-or-unity/
Voting at the
UN
https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/brics-expansion-as-non-west-consolidation/
https://saiia.org.za/research/a-global-rebalance/
The New
Development Bank
https://www.cadtm.org/Are-the-New-Development-Bank-and-the-BRICS-Monetary-Fund-an-alternative-to-the
Look at the graph!
Disputes and
tensions
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/brics-expansion/
https://warontherocks.com/2025/09/the-limits-of-rapprochement-between-india-and-china/
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/04/how-china-india-relations-will-shape-asia-and-global-order/summary
click on all sections
An alternative
world order?
https://www.iris-france.org/186913-brics-towards-a-new-international-order/
https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/brics-summit-emerging-middle-powers-g7-g20?lang=en
Human rights
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/china/report-china/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/europe-and-central-asia/eastern-europe-and-central-asia/russia/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/africa/southern-africa/south-africa/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/south-asia/india/report-india/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/americas/south-america/brazil/
BRICS and economic development
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Development_Bank
https://www.ndb.int/
https://mg.co.za/thought-leader/2024-06-27-alternative-payment-systems-in-africa-and-brics-member-states-can-shift-geoeconomic-dynamics/
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/brics-enlargement-and-shifting-world-order
The existing
world order
The Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 created the basis for a cooperative global
economic system to stabilize the world economy, a system which soon included
the United States, Canada, Western European countries, Japan and Australia and
later many other states (see the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which
was created later in the early 1990s). It expanded to include
Eastern European members of the former Communist bloc after the end of the Cold
War and the economic change of direction in China. In parallel, the United
Nations, created in 1945, was, and is, a second attempt at the Wilsonian vision
of a rule-based international political order able to prevent or rapidly resolve
international conflicts of the kind that led to the two world wars. The UN is also committed
to the protection and promotion of human rights.
Some questions
to consider:
Do the BRICS countries intend to challenge the existing world order?
Do the BRICS intend to undermine, subvert or take control of this
economic/political order?
Or do they want to create a parallel alternative to it or simply to play a
greater role within it?
Do they see the world order as too dominated by the US, the dollar as the
main exchange currency, and its political or military allies?
Do they want a more multipolar system? A less Western-values-based order? Would
this legitimize autocracy? Or a system where state sovereignty is paramount?
Do they share objectives as a group or does each of them have its own goals,
only cooperating when it is to its advantage?
Will its expansion to include other resource rich countries give them the means
to steer the international order?
Does the group represent a threat to human rights? What do the BRICS mean
by human rights?
What evidence can you offer in responding to these questions?
Some tentative (provisional) conclusions (2025)
The BRICS seem to be able to
vote with a fair degree of quiet unity at the UN (using abstentions on votes on
Ukraine, for example) and if they expand to include other resource-rich
developing counties will clearly gain in both economic and political influence.
The real question for the future is whether this will lend more support to
authoritarianism at the expense of democracy and human rights.
However, one
should note that the BRICS are not really like the old Communist bloc, which
defined itself by its opposition to the West and to capitalism. (Perhaps
politically it has so far been more similar to the old Non-Aligned Movement of
the Cold War period, of which India was a member – at least until Russia and
China’s increasingly proactive foreign policy). Economically, there is no clear
division between the ‘West’ and the BRICS. In both groups we find a range of
approaches to managing the economy, those that adopt a more free-market
approach, those that believe in government supervision and those that believe
in a welfare state – and varying proportions of all three. Politically, as with
the rest of the world, the BRICS countries have their national interests and
will no doubt seek to protect them, but there is no basic ideological division
between the West and the BRICS regarding economics. China is hardly
recognizable today as a ‘Communist’ state in terms of economic policy. China
and Russia are authoritarian states but they are also part of an international
community in theory still based on Western liberal free-market and democratic
values that they do not wish to challenge publicly (although they may violate
them) and which shows no real signs of losing its appeal to the majority of
people around the world despite the increase in the number of authoritarian
regimes. Brazil, South Africa and India are active supporters of this
community’s values. As indicated previously, Bolsonaro was a populist
authoritarian figure who aligned with Putin but lost the 2022 election to former president Lula da Silva. So the challenge represented by the BRICS
is probably best expressed in economic terms rather than in a situation arising
that will necessarily lead to a political clash. Developing economies are
becoming less dependent on developed economies and the institutions that they
dominate, Here China, Russia and Brazil certainly say
that they want the BRICS to represent an alternative model to the West’s (the
IMF and World Bank) one that represents the Global South.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/28/china/china-brics-expansion-victory-intl-hnk/index.html
In fact, some optimistic
commentators hope that both Russia and China will ultimately conform to liberal
values in the long term, evolving slowly towards a more democratic and
rights-based society, however unlikely this seems in 2025, given their
tightening of authoritarian domestic controls and territorial claims in recent
years. This at least is the position of most of those who favor relaunching
cooperation, where possible, over confrontation. In their opinion, a more
multipolar world with a more diffuse leadership does not necessarily mean a
weaker West, but perhaps simply a more inclusive and wider definition of that
idea. At the same time, we may see the BRICS acting together on crucial
economic issues, and also negatively to block, discourage or restrain what they
may see as Western adventurism as regards military interventions (perhaps
proposed ‘for humanitarian purposes’) in other countries (such as those in Afghanistan,
Iraq and Libya) or to protect their
partners from criticism, but much less able to agree a positive, proactive line
in foreign policy due to their different political systems and priorities.
Their cooperation could prove valuable in areas where the US is no longer
willing to get involved. For instance, during the Trump administration the
BRICS remained supporters of efforts to save the Iran deal.
Other experts point to the reaction of its BRICS partners to Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine in early 2022. They have called for restraint by both sides and a
peaceful solution to the conflict, in line with the traditional policy of the
BRICS, but voted against or abstained from votes criticizing Russia for
invading an independent sovereign state. Such open or tacit support for Russia
may be ideological on China’s part, in favor of authoritarian government, but
simply economic on the part of India and South Africa, both wanting to secure
their energy supplies. Brazil’s position may have partly reflected Bolsonaro’s
sympathy for authoritarianism but with president Lula just the continued desire
to cooperate with Russia as an energy supplier.
https://feps-europe.eu/brics-2025-brazils-balancing-act/
China also seems
to be quietly helping Russia by offering an alternative to the SWIFT payment
system
https://caliber.az/en/post/china-launches-quiet-alternative-to-swift-says-russian-official
and by
continuing its energy imports
but problems
with infrastructure make it unlikely that China will be able to increase
imports of gas in the short term.
So cooperation
among the BRICS may be less a question of principle and more one of a general
opposition to political interference or sanctions from a Western-led or
dominated international community and a determination to have greater influence
and freedom in the economic field within the international community and its
institutions. Beyond that, however, each member of the BRICS may simply want
the freedom to focus on its own priorities in foreign policy with or without
its BRICS partners. India, for example, is also part of the Quad group,
aimed at containing China’s increasing military presence in the Indo-Pacific
area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrilateral_Security_Dialogue
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogo_quadrilaterale_di_sicurezza
https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/07/2025-quad-foreign-ministers-meeting
https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/the-quad-critical-minerals-initiative
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