DIIS Comment

The fifth BRICS Summit: Paving the road to "Western decline" with uneven BRICS?

When the BRICS-leaders on March 26-27 meet in Durban, South Africa, it marks the completion of the first cycle of BRICS summits. Seizing this opportunity to assess the impact of BRICS as a new bloc of emerging powers, one should not get carried away by the hearty handskakes and ardent aspirations.
22 March 2013

In a time of global ideological truce it apparently takes an American investment bank to conjure up a rivaling bloc of countries that may vie with the West. Ever since Goldman Sachs coined the BRIC acronym more than a decade ago, Brazil, Russia, India and China have eagerly exploited their allotted brand to form a non-Western coalition of emerging powers in international politics. And with a bit of wit of their own, the BRICS recently capitalized in full by admitting South Africa into their ranks, thereby enlisting another continent behind their non-Western cause.
 
On the face of it, the BRICS may be easily dismissed as a strategically branded jumble of countries that defy most meaningful common denominators. They do not share a common geographical context or constitute a trading block like the EU, ASEAN and MERCOSUR, nor are they united by cultural affinities or historical bonds like the Arab League and the Commonwealth countries respectively. While Brazil, India and South Africa pride themselves of being vibrant multi-cultural democracies, both Russia and China are more accurately described as autocratic regimes based on a particularistic ethno-cultural mindset. Moreover, whereas China and Russia as permanent members of the UN Security Council enjoy the status and rights of great powers, the other three BRICS are still regarded as developing countries and have formed their own club, IBSA, to strengthen their common interests internationally.
 
Indeed, the notion of a BRICS-challenge to the West quickly dissolves when confronted with the fact that the lofty declarations from their annual summits – announcing wide-ranging cooperation and an extensive bureaucratization of their joint activities – have yet to materialize. Even more importantly, the BRICS themselves have been struggling with the global financial crisis, which has seriously hampered their growth momentum and accordingly undermined the previous straight line projections of their rise. Finally, although they represent emerging markets, the BRICS still rank as middle or low income countries in terms of GDP per capita (# 75, 53, 129, 92 and 78 respectively in 2011). This, of course, is a useful indication of how far the BRICS still lag behind the advanced Western economies – not to mention the continued military dominance of the United States – thus reducing the imminence of any direct challenge from the BRICS.
 
Nevertheless, there are at least two reasons why the “BRICS-phenomenon” is interesting as an expression of the current mental state of international affairs. Firstly, the BRICS embody an anti-Western sentiment that runs deep among the emerging powers as demonstrated by the sometimes harsh political rhetoric of the BRICS summit statements. The colonial suppression by Western countries is not easily – or willingly for that matter – erased from the identities of Brazil, India or South Africa. The Chinese have certainly not forgotten the “Century of Humiliation” under Western (and Japanese) imperialism, which is why Chinese policy-makers react vehemently whenever Western countries interfere in questions concerning China’s sovereignty or territorial rights. As to Russia, its 20th century ideological rivalry with the Western powers has instilled a similar anti-Western consciousness in the Russian population. Taken together, this is mirrored in the BRICS’ staunch commitment to Westphalian principles of sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs. Especially Russia and China have used their seats in the Security Council to block the emerging Western-sponsored norm of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect, as witnessed most recently in Syria.
 
The second reason has actually more to do with the West itself. The emergence of the BRICS seems to signal a transition to a post-western world and therefore feeds into anxieties about the decline of the West. Tellingly, we have seen a virtual industry of speculation about when rising non-Western powers will surpass the West, featuring in particular China’s race against America. The pioneers of Goldman Sachs first estimated that the Chinese economy would surpass the American in 2041, which was later adjusted to 2027. The Economist Intelligence Unit has projected the transition to take place in 2021, while IMF and OECD put their bet on 2016. Some even argue that it has already occurred in terms of the purchasing power parity measure. Yet, in light of the recent slowdown of the BRICS’ economic output and the continued inferiority of the BRICS-economies compared to the West, the whole exercise of measuring when the transition nominally will take place seems most of all to reflect a somewhat paranoid fear of decline.
 
Interestingly, the debate about Western decline in general and American decline in particular has a long history reaching all the way back to the Cold War era. From the fear of being overtaken by the Soviet Union in the days of Sputnik through the collapse of Bretton Woods, oil crises, the rise of OPEC, Vietnam war and Iranian revolution to the ‘Japan threat’ of the 80s, which has now been replaced by a ‘China threat’. Hence, the latest round of the “declinist debate” already has a well-established lens through which to read the economic crisis, unemployment, military sequestration and even the last flight of the Discovery space shuttle.
 
While the idea of a BRICS-challenge to the West may seem like a bit of a hype, it would be premature to predict that the 21st century will be yet another Western dominated era. There is no iron law that prevents the BRICS from reaching parity with the Western great powers, but if it does happen, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are much more likely to pose a challenge to the existing world order individually, rather than as a group. The fifth BRICS-summit – hearty handshaking and ardent aspirations notwithstanding – will not in itself change the fact that collective potential is not easily translated into collaborative action when disparate national interests are at play.

This comment is a revised edition of a previously published article in Dialogue, a King’s College online-journal.

DIIS Eksperter

Andreas Bøje Forsby
Udenrigspolitik og diplomati
Seniorforsker
The fifth BRICS Summit
Paving the road to "Western decline" with uneven BRICS?