The Global South’s agenda

On Aug. 2, South Africa’s ambassador to the BRICS said that the ragtag group’s 15th summit in Johannesburg would initiate “a tectonic change...in the global geopolitical architecture.” While the summit that concluded on Aug. 24 fell decidedly short of that, it did cement the BRICS as the most important driver of the Global South’s agenda, surpassing the G20 as the premier economic forum for developing nations.

The summit’s most surprising and consequential outcome was the announcement that the bloc, comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, agreed to invite six new members – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – to join in 2024. The BRICS+, as the expanded grouping is called, will make up a meaningfully larger share of global GDP than the G7 club of advanced industrial democracies.

This expansion is a diplomatic win for China, which has long sought to grow the BRICS as a vehicle to advance its national interests and counterweight Western influence. The fact that nearly 40 countries expressed an interest in joining the bloc over the past 18 months underscores the desire of many in the Global South to find alternatives to a Western-led “global order” they feel has left them behind. In fact, if there’s one thing BRICS+ members have in common, it’s that they all seek a more multipolar international system that better serves the interests of the Global South and gives them agency to pursue their own interests amid intensifying US-China competition, a raging war in Ukraine and an accelerating energy transition.

But the BRICS+ is not poised to become a cohesive China-led competitor to the G7. Most of its members want neither to be led by China nor to decouple from the West, and divisions within the group run deep. Leading BRICS founder India is more likely to go to war than to cooperate with China. With the exception of Iran and Russia, all members want ties with both the West and China, not an either/or choice. Most are as wary of Beijing’s unilateralism as they are of Washington’s “America First” orientation. Critically, unlike the G7, which is made up of large and rich liberal democracies with a shared vision of the global order, the BRICS+ nations don’t align on political or economic systems, let alone a common agenda.

In particular, the new members from the Middle East and Northeast Africa will use the BRICS to grow their geopolitical influence and diversify their international partnerships, trade and investments, rather than cooperate on an explicitly anti-Western agenda. For the Gulf states, the aim is not to antagonize the US but to hedge their bets in light of their shrinking alignment with Washington, while increasing their ability to maneuver more independently. For Egypt, the hope is that the BRICS can offer much-needed economic lifelines. Iran seeks to gain stature and new funding options in the absence of Western sanctions relief. And for Ethiopia (like most of sub-Saharan Africa), the goal is closer economic integration with Beijing, which already far outstrips Washington as a source of investment on the continent.

The BRICS+ will push for greater influence in multilateral organizations like the UN, the IMF and the World Bank, and for less reliance on the US dollar. It will endow the Global South with more agenda-setting power on issues like climate and finance. It will facilitate more effective hedging and balancing by its new members. And it will remain mostly an economic forum rather than an anti-Western security bloc. It doesn’t beckon the dawn of a new Cold War.

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Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, and the author The Power of Crisis.