To become a truly influential international association, BRICS needs not only to strengthen its extremely weak internal ties but also to formulate proposals that can become the basis of a global agenda—equally important for both developed and developing countries. This is not as difficult as it seems. The issues of this proposed BRICS global agenda are on everyone’s lips.
BRICS as Emerging Leaders
Over the past decade, China, India, Russia, and Brazil have begun to view themselves as states linked by common economic interests and pursuing similar goals. Whether the hopes placed on them will be justified remains to be seen, but it is already clear that these powers (and South Africa, which recently joined them) are actively “pricing” not only economic but also political issues that could become their contribution to the global south discourse.
This process is important primarily because the BRICS countries, on one hand, are objectively perceived as representatives of the “non-Western” world (Russia and China were antagonists of the West during the Cold War, India and Brazil were colonies of European powers at different times, South Africa symbolized the struggle of the local population against foreign rulers), but on the other hand, they are extremely dependent on the West and serve as a complementary economic system to it (China rose on exports of cheap industrial products to developed countries, India grows on technological outsourcing, Russia and South Africa act as raw material appendages to Europe and the USA). If these states really intend to become trendsetters in the world economy in 30–40 years, they will have to intercept the topics that dominate global politics during this period—not in harsh confrontation with the leading powers, but rather in the creative development of existing trends.
The financial capabilities of developing countries, combined with European technological breakthroughs, could make the USA in 15–20 years the only remaining stronghold of energy inefficiency and largely oppose them to the rest of the world as an example of selfish policy. BRICS countries could emphasize their developing nature through the impossibility of copying Western consumption standards and, on the other hand, use the popularity of the problem to concentrate international efforts on directions that are most important to them.
In such a situation, the BRICS global agenda, which would undoubtedly make this association talked about as a notable agent on the global political and intellectual scene, should combine several circumstances. First, it should undoubtedly touch on themes in which these countries are particularly significant: energy, export of natural resources, industrial development, and so on. Second, all these topics should be positioned not offensively but rather defensively, emphasizing not only their achievements but also their development potential, not only rights but also responsibility. Third, the main topics contributed to the global discourse should not be reduced to relations between the North and the South, nor confined within the “non-West,” but given a global character from the outset. Fourth, it would be worth declaring topics that the leading powers certainly do not expect from the BRICS countries. In other words, a certain “embeddedness” in ongoing debates is needed; a significant emphasis on the uniqueness—positive and not so much—of the discussion initiators; and finally, bringing to the “top” such topics in which potential opponents consider themselves the sole leaders of any discussion.
Alternative to Global Warming
Environmental issues are one of the most actively imposed topics on the global agenda by the West. Without denying its value and significance, it should be noted that one of the main elements of this issue—the so-called global warming—is increasingly being challenged by experts who say that this process may be one of the long waves of natural climate change, and that there is no warming as such at all. In any case, the BRICS countries cannot ignore this topic because among them are both the world’s largest producer of energy resources (Russia) and the main consumer (China). Therefore, the environmental theme should become one of the main ones through which BRICS can intercept the discussion on sustainable development issues (and its reformatting is inevitable in the coming years, since the period for implementing the UN-defined “Millennium Goals” ends in 2015).
The topic of emissions into the atmosphere of combustion products of organic fuel is important for the BRICS countries also because neither China nor India can—by purely quantitative indicators—bring energy use levels per capita to those existing today in developed countries. Therefore, it is BRICS that should make the theme of economical resource use its hallmark. Today, developing countries do not participate in the Kyoto Protocol, justifying this by the needs of their economic development. However, this development requires not reducing emissions below some given level, but actively increasing the energy efficiency of the economy and creating new energy technologies. For the past decades, European countries have invariably been leaders in this matter—but now there is a chance for others. China needs energy efficiency so that its rural population does not end up in an environmental disaster zone due to air and water pollution problems; India needs it for rapid industrialization and maintaining competitiveness; Russia—for preserving export volumes of raw materials by reducing domestic consumption; Brazil in this case occupies a unique position as a pioneer in biofuel production.
Therefore, one of the important initiatives of BRICS could be the reformulation of the entire agenda concerning global warming and global environmental problems in general. The huge financial capabilities of these countries, combined with European technological breakthroughs, could essentially make the United States in 15–20 years the only remaining stronghold of energy inefficiency and largely oppose them to the rest of the world as an example of selfish and shortsighted policy. In other words, in this area, the BRICS countries could, on one hand, emphasize their developing nature through the impossibility of copying Western consumption standards and, at the same time, on the other hand, use the eternal popularity of the problem to concentrate international efforts on directions that are most important to them.
It is BRICS that should make the theme of economical resource use its hallmark. Today, developing countries do not participate in the Kyoto Protocol, justifying this by the needs of their development. However, development requires not reducing emissions, but increasing the energy efficiency of the economy.
One can go further and expand the focus from energy efficiency to the efficiency of resource use in general. The BRICS countries by their example—China and Brazil in a positive sense, and Russia rather in a negative one—show that it is large-scale industrialization, not niche development, that is the key to breaking out of poverty into a stable “middle-class” society. Therefore, the link between ecology and efficiency, replacing global warming on the agenda with a global program to increase resource use efficiency, could become the topic that makes the BRICS countries, if not a real, then at least an intellectual leader in discussing sustainable development themes. For more on global economic trends, see [Link to related BRICS article].
Rethinking Financial Imbalances
No less important is the possible initiative of the BRICS countries in comprehending the financial situation that has developed in the world in recent years and which is unlikely to change radically in the next decade. The most important feature of this situation appears to be the gigantic imbalances that have formed in economic relations between developed countries and the BRICS states. If in the mid-1990s the West was a global creditor, and the periphery was barely recovering from the crisis of the 1980s or the collapse of the Soviet bloc, today America and Europe look like dubious debtors, while China (including Hong Kong), Russia, India, Brazil, and South Africa possess (as of the end of November 2013) foreign exchange reserves of 5.2 trillion dollars. However, the self-confidence that this circumstance gives to the BRICS countries may play a cruel joke on them.
On one hand, one should not forget that the rapid rise of China, for example, is largely due to the fact that after the crisis in Asia in 1997, the USA and Western European countries did not introduce any protectionist measures against countries that sharply lowered the exchange rate of their currencies, which put the West in a deliberately disadvantageous position. The same can be said about oil prices, which could have been stopped in their growth in the mid-2000s, but the USA and Europe made no efforts, allowing Russia and Saudi Arabia to rise. In many ways, the phenomenal growth of BRICS in the last decade became possible thanks to the “connivance” of the West, and global imbalances became a consequence not so much of the desire of developed countries to borrow money as of the desire of developing ones to guarantee themselves reserves in case of a new crisis.
On the other hand, one should realize that developed countries can devalue their own currencies, accelerate inflation, and in one way or another devalue the reserves of BRICS. As in 1971, they risk nothing in doing so—and therefore the new rich countries do not look self-sufficient at all, and global imbalances may threaten them more than Europe and the USA. A decrease in the dollar and euro exchange rates may be more than favorable for their issuers but fraught with serious shocks on the global periphery.
In such a situation, it would be reasonable for the BRICS countries to be the first to raise the question of overcoming global financial imbalances—and to raise it not in the form of an ultimatum to the West, but rather as a proposal for gradual and rational settlement of this problem. The first step on this path could be the recognition that imbalances are generated by the economic policy of both sides: on one hand, the West, on the other—the periphery; that at the end of the 1990s and throughout the 2000s, the West significantly contributed by maintaining its undiminished demand to the development of the BRICS states; and that, finally, today the BRICS countries realize the need to support the West in its difficult position. This could radically change the attitude of both developed countries and the whole world to BRICS in both economic and political aspects. The second step could be reaching an agreement that the debts of Western countries (for example, in the amount in which other countries have been their holders for more than five years) can be used to purchase real assets on the territory of these states (possibly even with discounting the debt value). As a result, existing restrictions on investments from BRICS countries in Europe and the USA would be lifted, the debts of leading powers would sharply decrease (as well as the reserves of developing ones), which would ensure acceleration of economic growth worldwide. Finally, third, if the BRICS countries managed to achieve equal opportunities for investing in the leading economies of the world, they would become natural leaders in the eyes of other peripheral countries striving for the same.
In other words, it is extremely important for the BRICS countries both politically and economically to offer the West a respectful and effective method of resolving the current debt crisis. The current financial imbalances should not be perceived as evidence of BRICS victory over the USA and the EU; this rather resembles the era of the arms race and the triumph of ideas of “mutually assured destruction,” which will occur regardless of who first begins to deviate from responsible financial policy. A BRICS initiative in this area would be extremely unexpected in the current situation and unlikely to cause rejection in the world. According to IMF reports on emerging economies, such strategies can foster global stability .
In conclusion, shaping the BRICS global agenda involves addressing energy efficiency, financial imbalances, and sustainable development to position emerging economies as key players in the global south.
