BRICS leaders in Johannesburg challenge Western dominance

Financial markets are now focused on the beginning of the three-day BRICS meeting in South Africa. To begin the three-day BRICS summit, leaders and senior officials from five of the largest rising economies in the world met in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa make up the bloc, which accounts for 40% of global population and 25% of global GDP. The bloc’s negotiations will be heavily influenced by two fundamental issues: expansion and economic development.

The five participants are anticipated to talk about the requirements for accepting new nations into the union. Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Belarus, Indonesia, Iran, and Nigeria have all shown a desire to participate.

As China’s rivalry with the United States heats up and Russia’s conflict with Ukraine goes on, BRICS members have started to place more importance on the group’s ability to act as a counterweight to Western economic and geopolitical dominance.

However, not everyone is in favour of BRICS’s doors being opened. India and Brazil are both concerned that hasty growth could weaken the bloc’s clout on the world stage, despite the fact that Russia wants more partners to bolster its military campaign.

South Africa, the group’s smallest economy, wants to refocus its expansion efforts on other African countries. More than 30 African leaders have accepted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s invitation to attend this week’s BRICS summit.

At this week’s conference, the leaders of the BRICS countries also seek to establish a framework that will promote the use of national currencies for direct commerce.

The goal of BRICS is to weaken dollar diplomacy and the influence that Western organizations like the International Monetary Fund have on international affairs by moving away from the U.S. currency. South African officials, however, stated that the development of a single BRICS currency is not currently being discussed.

Given the significance of these economic discussions, China observers were surprised by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s sudden decision to skip a BRICS business gathering on Tuesday when he was supposed to give a speech.

The other four world leaders all spoke at the summit, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although it’s unclear why Xi decided to skip the occasion and send his commerce minister in his place, after all, he had just eaten lunch with Ramaphosa before the forum, it was undoubtedly a weird way to start the summit.