BRICS Summit in India: BISS analyst on how the platform of the global majority affects the new world order

The 18th BRICS Summit will be held in New Delhi on September 12-13. All the leaders of the member states, as well as partner countries, including the Republic of Belarus, were invited. Analyst Yuri Yarmolinsky told what topics will be raised at the summit. This is reported on the BISI website, writes sb.by.

According to Yuri Yarmolinsky, the countries of the association have long been looking for ways and ways to improve the security of mutual settlements, reduce excessive dependence on one financial channel:

- Digital currencies of the central banks of the BRICS countries as an element of a new geo-economic infrastructure for more convenient and secure cross-border payments (according to some Russian experts, they have become a tool of the “new war” on the part of the West). India is actively promoting wider adoption of such currencies and increased interoperability of financial systems. It is not intended to be completely isolated from the current model.

The main task is to increase sustainability. He explained that the increase in lending in national currencies for infrastructure and sustainable development projects is intended to strengthen the role of the BRICS New Development Bank

- Closer coordination on supply chains, critical minerals, energy and food security, and industrial cooperation could move the BRICS beyond declarative diplomacy. Transforming these ambitions into a common policy remains a challenge.

In addition, Yuri Yarmolinsky added, special attention will be paid to cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises:

- They are seen as a driver of trade and economic cooperation (because of greater flexibility), which is also relevant for Belarusian-Indian relations. One of India’s important achievements is the promotion of the BRICS Economic Partnership Strategy until 2030. In the twenty-first century, geopolitical competition is increasingly driven by technology. That is why technological cooperation in BRICS is so important. Technology is becoming the new currency, and artificial intelligence is defining strategic competitiveness.

India intends to propose a mechanism for the accelerated search and extradition of persons accused of major financial crimes (exchange of investigative and financial information, direct interaction between the competent authorities for the search, freezing and return of assets transferred abroad). He added:

- At the same time, against the background of a busy agenda and a general ceremony, India, as the current (fourth time) chairman of the BRICS, faces a structural challenge - not just to hold a summit meeting, but to bring together countries whose interests and unity have recently increasingly diverged. At the same table, strategic competitors, energy partners, sanctioned states, regional rivals, developing countries, leading industrial powers – all of them have different relations with the United States and the Western world. However, some experts believe that this “unity and struggle of opposites” may be the true essence and bond of unification. So does the lack of institutionalization, where flexibility is both an advantage and a vulnerability.

Yuri Yarmolinsky stressed that India’s chairmanship in BRICS falls on a very difficult transition period:

- It’s not just another summit meeting. The country arranges multipolarity and strategic balancing a kind of “stress test”. Multipolarity does not automatically mean a more peaceful objective reality and universal consensus. The main task of the strategists in New Delhi is to transform the nominally increased geopolitical power of the BRICS into effective economic cooperation. There is no shortage of ambition and ideas in member countries. But for the most part, they suffer from problems with their practical implementation and coherence. The best way out of the situation can be the principle of selective functionality, when they do not try to reach an absolute compromise, but actively interact in areas of common or overlapping interests. The main benefits for India will be diplomatic and reputational.

The BRICS chairmanship is New Delhi’s long-term strategic investment in strengthening its position in the new global order. Its success will demonstrate the compatibility of strategic autonomy with effective multilateral cooperation, as well as the claim to represent the interests of the broader Global South.

- We expect Belarus’ voice at the New Delhi summit to be traditionally proactive and innovative, despite its status as a partner country. And no less expressive, clear and contrasting, as it was recently in Bishkek, where the leaders of Russia, India and China (the RIC format) – the core of the SCO and BRICS – were appealed about the lack of breakthrough initiatives. The quality of relations between these countries as the core of an alternative geo-economic center is crucial for the success of both associations, Yarmolinsky added.

He drew attention to the fact that the progressive development of New Delhi’s ties with Moscow, the ongoing détente with Beijing created favorable conditions for the consolidation of the “embedded geometry” of RIC-SCO-BRICS and its political “capitalization”:

- It is obvious that the BRICS and SCO platforms, which unite the countries of the Global Majority, are already mature enough to move from common political declarations to concrete practical steps and to participate more actively in the formation of a new world order. Even despite the divergent geopolitical interests of the member countries, the “spirit of BRICS”, mixing with the “spirit of Shanghai”, already today in fact fixes the contours of the changing reality of the global world. Therefore, it seems that much of the final declaration of the 18th BRICS meeting with a certain amount of convention (given the efforts of New Delhi to move away from the narrative of “confrontation with the West”) will be a kind of message to the December G20 summit in Miami.

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