What is BRICS really up to?

In an effort to reshape the global world order and provide a counterweight to the US and its allies, the BRICS group of big emerging economies announced the admission of six new members.

Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina, the UAE, and Ethiopia will join Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as members starting next year.

Xi Jinping, China's president, called the expansion "historic". He argued that by expanding Brics, the global south would have a stronger voice in international affairs.  It should be noted that China's president missed the opening ceremony but showed up in time for the BRICS expansion meeting. 

As president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa said the BRICS expansion process had been agreed upon. However, these criteria were not explained. Indonesia, with 274 million people and a powerful force in Asia, applied to join but was rejected.

In the opinion of Ryan Berg, the head of the Americas program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, this is a win for China and Russia. “For China, it allows them to continue building what they hope will be a Beijing-centric order. For Russia, which is hosting it next year, it sees this as a tremendous opportunity in its current moment of significant isolation.”

According to her, the G7 and other global north actors shouldn't dismiss this as significant. The BRICS configuration now represents a much larger share of the global economy and population with these new members on board – especially the major oil producers."

China and India have a dispute over part of their border, and the combination of new members has also raised eyebrows.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are old political foes, and Egypt and Ethiopia have also been at odds over a Nile hydroelectric dam.

Through it all, no one in the group has condemned Russia for attacking Ukraine.