Special to WorldTribune.com

By John J. Metzler, November 1, 2024

Vladimir Putin put on a good show.

The 16th annual BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia set the stage for the gathering of what’s essentially the “Alternative economic club” to the established Western groups such as the G-7 and the IMF.  Thirty-five 35 delegations including 24 heads of State and government journeyed to Kazan for a three day Summit and schmooze session with the otherwise diplomatically isolated Russian president.

Putin set the tone for the group to become a powerful economic bloc, or at least try to sound that way, as well as countering the reality that Russia faces isolation from the global economy.

Kazan, deep in the steppes of Russia and 500 miles east of Moscow and part of the nominal Muslim Republic of Tatarstan, was chosen to showcase Russia’s image between West and East and friend of the Global South.  This historic city on the Volga, Kazan has a mixed population of Muslim and Orthodox Russians.

Let’s face it: An economic grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa holds clout in geographic size, resources, population and production, at least on paper. Just this year the BRICS admitted their new members Egypt, Ethiopia and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

What hurts the group remains corruption, weak institutions and even political tensions among its partners such as the long-time China/India border dispute.

BRICS leaders at their summit in Kazan, Russia on Wednesday. / AFP

Conversely Russia, China and India form a crucial land mass holding significant economic clout.

When the group was founded in 2006, many hailed it as a realistic alternative to what’s deemed as Western oriented economic/financial institutions. The BRICS present themselves as the alternative to Western organizations and are thus increasingly attuned to the Global South, aka former Third World.  The group already includes more than half the world’s population.

Without question Beijing dominates BRICS if only for the size and economic standing, one of the world’s largest economies. China’s communist leader Xi Jinping beamed in the glow of the Summit as much as did India’s capitalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  Putin approved.

But BRICS is more about politics and posturing than classic economics.  The Russian President clearly views the group as a political tool as well as a safe haven for Moscow’s policy aspirations even in the aftermath of his Ukraine invasion.

“For Putin, the summit is the most important foreign policy event of the year and he wants to use it to present himself on the world stage as a leader who is not internationally isolated, but who, with the BRICS states, represents the future ‘world majority’ ” states Germany’s respected Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.

The surprise visit of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres created bad optics for him given the setting and international situation. Though his visit was politically slammed by Ukraine, it does the UN no good to be seen mingling with President Putin, a person with an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC). As curiously, Secretary General Guterres spent Oct. 24th, historically commemorated as UN Day, in a country which currently is violating the territorial integrity of another UN member state Ukraine, thus breaking international law.

To his credit Guterres’s speech challenged Moscow’s narrative, “We need peace in Ukraine.  A just peace in line with the UN Charter, International law and General Assembly resolutions.”

Iran’s new membership in BRICS is surprising; A heavily sanctioned regime savors political legitimacy.  But Iran’s petroleum economy is on the upswing with over 1.8 million barrels of oil sold per day mostly to China.  Why?  Though facing suffocating economic sanctions under former President Trump, the Biden/Harris Administration has often waived tough sanctions enforcement on Teheran.  Thus Iran has much more cash to support its Mideast proxies such as Hamas and Hizbullah and naturally have a better economic standing.

Interestingly Turkish President Erdogan is vying for BRICS membership; Should he be accepted, Turkey would become the first NATO member.  Conversely Argentina’s free market President Javier Milei withdrew his country from the group last year.

A major BRICS focus is to study using alternatives to the U.S. Dollar for global trade. Russia has stressed the promotion and development of alternative financial instruments and clearing systems in order to minimize dependence on Western currencies and the SWIFT transfer system.

Somehow, I don’t feel that many countries, even among the BRICS are going to substitute using the Ruble, the Real, the Rand, the Rupee or the Yuan to largely replace the U.S. Dollar anytime soon for major commercial transactions.

But take note, BRICS represents an erosion of the post-war Western-based economic order.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China (2014). [See pre-2011 Archives]

  Putin throws BRICS at global critics, WorldTribune.com

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