A few months ago there was much excitement about the scheduled summit of Brics leaders in Durban. As the date approaches the excitement is being replaced with anxiety and frustration over what, if anything, might be achieved amid growing controversy and geopolitical tension.
The excitement was informed by real fundamentals. After two years of global economic lockdown the world economy was reopening and returning to a semblance of pre-Covid normality. Thanks to its zero Covid-19 policy — an approach anchored in the belief that the virus could be suppressed and eliminated by restrictions to travel and economic activity and the wearing of masks — China took almost three years to reopen its economy. Only in January did it scrap all restrictions and open its economy to the world’s commodities.
The return to power of Lula da Silva in Brazil, replacing the pro-American conservative Jair Bolsonaro, fuelled hope that the Brics bloc would once more be injected with much-needed enthusiasm to build a credible political and socioeconomic platform for the world’s leading emerging economies, which account for 31,5% of global GDP.
The re-election of Xi Jinping as China’s leader would also bring fresh impetus to the group. Like their people, the Brics leaders yearned for physical contact with allies after Covid-19. Xi had done very little travel outside China; Lula had hardly travelled after his jailing; Indian prime minister Narendra Modi was recalibrating after mishandling Covid-19; and Russian President Vladimir Putin had travelled only within his region before deciding to invade Ukraine 15 months ago. The Durban summit would be the first face-to-face interaction and intercontinental travel between these allies.
In the run-up to the summit, many countries, wanting to hedge their bets against the US-led Western liberal order, were queuing to join the five-member club. Most of America’s allies in Asia and the Indo-Pacific regions felt Washington under Donald Trump had become an unreliable partner, and started looking elsewhere for alliances.
Partnership tested
The list of aspirant Brics members included Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Algeria, Egypt and Iran. The August summit was going to assess these interests and decide on the group’s expansion. This would be the second time, after SA’s admission, that the group’s membership would be increased. For most of SA’s economic operators the prospect of an expanded market, albeit not a free-trade area, held much promise.
During Covid-19 the Brics partnership was tested. Most observers agree that the bloc could have collaborated more on strategies to combat the disease and bolster food security in an increasingly inward-looking world. Yet SA’s instinct was to turn to the West: Pretoria joined the queue quickly to buy West-produced Covid-19 vaccines and licensed them before Chinese and Russian ones. Skewed trading patterns persisted.
The hope was that this year would be a turning point, and mark the start of a real conversation about equal, balanced economic development, the bloc’s mantra. Alas! Over the past two months much water has flowed under the Brics bridge. Three factors are at play. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin, charging him with war crimes, including the abduction of Ukrainian women and children.
SA, as host of the Brics summit and a signatory to the ICC’s founding Rome Statute, is under obligation to arrest Putin when he lands in SA, even though Russia itself is not a signatory. Since the warrant was issued SA has been attempting to fudge its position, vacillating from “we’re aware of our obligations” to “we’re seeking legal advice”, “we’re leaving the ICC”, “sorry, we’re not” and “we’re talking to all stakeholders”.
Selling weapons
As the problem refused to go away President Cyril Ramaphosa executed a hospital pass to his deputy, Paul Mashatile, tasking him with looking for technicalities that might allow Putin to attend the summit without having to sneak him in and out like a dirty secret, as was Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir.
Related to the above, expressing a wider Western discontent over SA’s position on the Russia-Ukraine war, the US through ambassador to SA Reuben Brigety, has accused Pretoria of selling Russia weapons for use in its war on Ukraine.
At this week’s G7 summit, leaders of the world’s richest nations characterised China as a global threat. As well as Putin’s war, this bellicose approach was triggered by other issues: talk of dedollarisation (cutting dollar-related global trading costs), significant decoupling and China’s contested role as an honest broker in the war. Worse, to the West’s annoyance China held a China-Central Asia summit, and Saudi Arabia hosted the Arab League in Jeddah and rehabilitated Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
The net effect of all these factors is not only to diminish the Brics summit’s significance, but also to deflect its leaders’ attention from the core issues of balanced socioeconomic development and, more importantly, a structured approach towards its transformation into a proper political, military and economic union — a systemic building block towards a multipolar world order.
• Dludlu, a former Sowetan editor, is CEO of the Small Business Institute.
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