The Brics summit in Johannesburg last week was a significant event in the changing international order. The decision to enlarge membership is both ambitious and ambiguous in the current changing times. Brazil, Russia, India and China started out as a rather arbitrary business classification of successful emerging economies in 2001 and were joined by South Africa in 2010. That they have now found a more common political purpose by inviting Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join shows they are unhappy with the present system of world power.
That dissatisfaction about how power is distributed is a more important lesson to draw from this event than how the decision to enlarge aligns with existing polarisations between west-east, north-south or liberal-authoritarian states. The five Brics states are frankly and openly divided on such alignments, mainly because their own interests are not adequately expressed by them. They hope to change the calculus by enlarging the alignments on offer. Their rejection of binary choices in favour of multi-aligned ones is the most significant lesson to draw from their meeting.
South Africa, the host state, supported enlarging the group, whereas the Indian and Brazilian leaders initially opposed that for fear of Brics becoming vulnerable to current divisions between the United States and China. Seen thus, Russia and China want the group to become a new polar alternative to the Western order -– and they have a good deal to be pleased about in what happened. But the outcome is also an alternative to such crudely polarised choices. The enthusiastic response of over 30 states to attend the meeting as observers tells a story about a widespread desire for change and a search for agency to express it.
This is a new world in the making. The European Union and its members did not feature to any significant extent – and need to up their diplomatic efforts in this game. Ireland has much to learn from its unfolding and must reflect more constructively on its own transition to a more developed country.