Common ground in short supply as China hosts BRICS
XIAMEN: The five BRICS nations hold their annual summit in China under the shadow of a Sino-Indian border spat and growing questions about the grouping’s relevance.
BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – was formed to allow big emerging economies representing more than 40% of humanity to form a united front in a world whose trade and finance rules were written by the West.
But the bloc seems no closer to that goal as President Xi Jinping convenes its ninth summit in Xiamen.
Lumping together far-flung and vastly different political and economic systems, BRICS has long been viewed by many as contrived, its members’ priorities diverging while its list of significant achievements remains modest.
“It’s really tough to see how BRICS is any type of coherent anything. What do they have in common?” said Christopher Balding, a Peking University economics professor.
“Economically, trade-wise, financially, they all do things very differently. It’s difficult to see any room for overlap.”
BRICS includes Communist-ruled China, authoritarian Russia and the democracies of India, Brazil and South Africa; China’s economic powerhouse, a rising India, and Russian, Brazilian and South African economies hit hard by weak prices of export commodities.
Brazilian President Michel Temer and South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, meanwhile, arrive distracted by political turmoil at home.
A major threat to BRICS comity lies in tension between nuclear-armed China and India, who recently locked horns over a disputed Himalayan border region.
A full-blown crisis was averted as they backed off last week.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi point- edly said on Wednesday that China hoped India would “learn lessons from this incident and prevent similar things from happening again”.
There is also mistrust over China’s ally Pakistan, which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi – who also will attend – has labelled a font of terrorism.
Modi snubbed a summit called by Xi in May to promote the Chinese leader’s vision of reinvigorated ancient east-west trading routes, which is seen by many analysts as a Chinese geopolitical power play.
“Expect a muted BRICS summit as participants tread on eggshells to prevent exposing divisions,” said Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor with Beijing’s Renmin University. — AFP