Looks like I need to eat my words. I had argued that an enlargement of Brics at the Johannesburg summit would diminish the influence of SA, the bloc’s smallest member. Yet the inclusion of six new members — Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — seems to have enhanced Pretoria’s profile in Brics. It is bathing in the limelight as the leading champion of the Global South.
The most important victory, though, was that SA seems to have gained China’s trust. Beijing and Pretoria’s view on agitating for a multipolar world order are aligned, and Pretoria has proved to Beijing that it is an able lieutenant in pulling off the mammoth diplomatic task of achieving consensus on the Brics expansion.
While Brics is mainly about fighting for equal rights for the Global South countries, it was plain to see at the weeklong summit that some are more equal than others. The pecking order was undeniable: President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping personally as he stepped off the plane, and later he bestowed the Order of SA upon Xi at the Union Buildings.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was received by deputy president Paul Mashatile, and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva by international relations & co-operation minister Naledi Pandor. Beijing appreciated the VIP treatment.
The message is clear. Pretoria is at the front line of the Global South’s bulwark against US hegemony, and can arguably benefit by leveraging its political clout to help SA businesses negotiate better access for SA exports and attract investment.
I have a couple of observations on the membership of the expanded Brics+. Firstly, three oil producing Middle Eastern countries were included — Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE. Traditionally, the Middle East was firmly within the US’s sphere of interest. Now, as China becomes the world’s largest consumer of oil and the US itself becomes a major energy producing country, Middle Eastern powers are looking for a new order. As the world move towards a carbon neutral future oil producing countries also need to aggressively reinvent themselves so that when the oil runs out they are ready to pursue alternatives.
Secondly, there is the interesting omission of any Southeast Asian countries. While Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo was in Sandton as an observer, his country chose not to apply to enter Brics. Southeast Asian countries have long chosen the Third Way of non-alignment. From their perspective it is better not to explicitly align against the US. For Indonesia it is better for it to practise strategic ambiguity and not be seen as explicitly siding with either the West or the East.
South America has been brought to the fore in Brics, with Brazil agreeing to allow Argentina to enter the club. The latter is Brazil’s largest neighbour and long-time competitor, and the two countries have not always seen eye to eye. That two significant countries in the Western hemisphere are now in Brics+ presumably will raise concerns in Washington.
Depending on their ideological bent, commentators have either dismissed the Brics summit in Sandton as an inconsequential event, as the US dollar remains a long way from being replaced as a global trade currency. Or, as I now believe, it was a monumental marker of the end of US domination of global politics as countries from Egypt to Argentina joined the club.
Pretoria has made its move and pinned her anti-Western hegemony stripes to the mast. This move won’t sit comfortably with a large part of SA’s business sector, which has strong traditional ties to the US and the West. However, I suspect fear of a US backlash, such as exclusion from the African Growth & Opportunities Act, is overblown.
The US won’t benefit from punishing all 11-members of the new Brics+, and China will relish the opportunity to make up any losses in trade SA may suffer due to reprisals by Washington.
• Dr Kuo is adjunct senior lecturer in the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business.
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