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| (Graphics: Milena Megre/X) |
The BRICS summit will soon be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — the first gathering of the BRICS family after the emergence of BRICS partners. It will feature the dual themes of enhancing Global South cooperation and promoting changes in global governance.Multilateralism, artificial intelligence, trade settlement in local currency and climate change will be major subjects at the meeting. The rest of the world is waiting to see, against the backdrop of structural changes in the international order triggered by the policies of the Donald Trump administration in the U.S., whether BRICS countries can take advantage of the window of opportunity presented by the restructuring of the international order and become new protagonists in global governance.
The biggest variable in the external environment for BRICS cooperation is structural change in the international order. The postwar order features international rules and various corresponding coordination mechanisms designed by the U.S.-led West and often called the “liberal world order” in Western intellectual and political circles.The World Bank, IMF and WTO have become the three pillars preserving order in finance and trade. Although the U.S.-led West promoted the the peculiar role of the United Nations, they haven't turned it into an authoritative organization with decision-making power. The so-called liberal order has various defects and weaknesses, but it has long ensured the normal operation of world politics and economics on the basis of the postwar order.It's worth mentioning that this order facilitated the capitalist prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s, promoted overwhelming waves of globalization in the 1980s and 1990s and made possible the collective rise of emerging economies at the beginning of the 21st century.
Trump sneered at the U.S.-led liberal order, arguing that America had paid a “stupid” price for it and claiming that allies and BRICS nations have reaped enormous benefits at no cost. Therefore, Trump is determined to put an end to it — and make “America first” the ultimate principle — by dramatically rolling back U.S. foreign policy. The United States suspended fee payments to the World Trade Organization in an attempt to paralyze the trading system, with the WTO at its core. It also withdrew from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement, showing no more interest in providing for the benefit of the international public.Trump's speech during his trip to the Middle East went even further to undermine the existing U.S. model for the international order. He said that great changes didn't originate from Western interventionism but that previous U.S. presidents had always been trapped in interventionist quagmires. This indicates now — during Trump 2.0 — that the United States is no longer enthusiastic about “structuring” other countries, nor is Trump overly passionate about transatlantic ties. Alliances and partnerships based on ideology will give way to a transactional order that puts profits first.As the liberal order gradually loses traction, “big power competition” and “big power governance” will become the main tone of a new international order. The “great triangle” of China, Russia and the United States will play a major role in the process of restructuring the international landscape.
To fill the gap in the international order, BRICS put forward the Global South solution. Since Trump decided to pull the U.S. out of the liberal order, global governance has been without core leaders. This turned out to be a precious opportunity for BRICS nations to promote a fair, reasonable and orderly new order. After membership expansion and accepting partner countries, BRICS has far surpassed the Western G7 in population size, economic strength, geographical coverage and geopolitical representativeness, It is thus fully capable of providing the international community with a new outlook and a global governance solution on behalf of countries in the Global South.
In fact, previous summits and the series of ministers meetings before the Rio summit have already shown a clear outline of BRICS nations' outlook on a revised international order and global governance:
• BRICS and Global South nations are beneficiaries of the current international order, and they have no intention of overthrowing it and starting over.
• The current international order is imbalanced, ineffective and in disarray and so must be reformed to be fairer, more reasonable and more orderly.
• In a new order, BRICS and Global South countries would no longer be silent lambs but rather would play a new role as protagonists in governance.
• In the new order, the core status of the UN would not change. The principles of international relations set in its charter would remain the foundation.
• Amid today's rampant unilateralism and trade protectionism, BRICS nations support an open, equitable, predictable and non-discriminatory multilateral trading regime with the WTO at its core.
• International institutionalized power must be redistributed to be commensurate with the size of the Global South. And it is especially important to greatly raise Global South countries' shares in the World Bank and IMF.
The world must be clear-eyed about BRICS nations' ability to restructure the international order, as BRICS faces some inescapable challenges and divergences. In the new international political ecosystem, one must be cool-headed about the process. We should neither over-estimate the ability of BRICS to change the world (and hence blindly or prematurely set certain agendas) nor sink in self-denial because of challenges and difficulties and thus join the chorus that talks BRICS down.Greater BRICS cooperation faces some practical challenges for the time being, which means BRICS nations must properly handle the contradictions with political wisdom. Brazil, India and South Africa hold grudges about their respective inability to become permanent members of the UN Security Council, and the United States has taken advantage of the situation to drive wedges between BRICS nations, blaming China as a “stumbling block” to reform. After membership expansion, BRICS has also shown the weaknesses of many proposals, few agreements and difficult implementation — typical of all multilateral mechanisms — lending credit to the claim that BRICS has become a “talkshop.”As BRICS membership expands, various bilateral issues between its members constrain multilateral cooperation. There have even been incidents of related parties undercutting each other.Even though Trump is withdrawing from the liberal order, he has made no concession on America's red line relating to U.S. dollar hegemony. Any BRICS move to get away from the U.S. dollar would invite revenge and suppression with zero tolerance.Then there are contradictions between overall BRICS interests and those of individual member countries. Under Trump's baton of tariffs, BRICS members are not always of one mind. Some have attempted to strike deals with the U.S. in private for self-protection.Finally, Iran has been invaded militarily by the U.S. and Israel, which poses the practical question of how the BRICS mechanism should try to prevent such incidents from being repeated.
To sum up, the international order stands at a critical crossroads. The BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro will once again showcase the group's role in the process of restructuring that order. BRICS nations seek to promote rather than overthrow the existing order. They do not intend to build a parallel system against the the Western camp. The DNA of BRICS points toward a rebalancing of global governance to transform the international order from a “center/periphery” pattern to an “equity/orderliness” pattern.
