India hosted the eighth BRICS summit in Goa on October 15-16 amid much fanfare. The group was formed with five major emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – with a view to challenging the existing global financial architecture (World Bank, IMF, etc) dominated by the West, particularly the US. These five economies – representing 43 percent of world population, 30 percent of global GDP (over USD 17 trillion) and 17 percent of world trade – held its first summit in Russia in June 2009.
Politically speaking, the summit came at a time when tension between India and Pakistan is at a worrying height. Discord and uneasiness is quite prominent within the group too. India-China relations are fraught with serious disagreement over territory and trade. Russia supports India and Brazil for permanent seats at the UN Security Council. But China is opposed to India’s aspirations. After brushing off American anger over Syria, Russia and China are now pals, at least for the moment. Russia trying to befriend Pakistan, however, is not seen favourably by India. In short, divergent national interests of this disparate group have little in common and can hardly speak in one voice.
Global economic recovery is slow and uncertain amid threats of anti-globalisation. IMF is worried over low price of oil and other commodities, tightening of monetary policy in America, and the gradual slowdown of the Chinese economy. Within the BRICS group, two major economies, Russia and Brazil, have shrunk significantly in 2015, while South Africa posted low growth. Only India and China continue with positive growth, though much lower than before. Once a powerful group of emerging economies with considerable economic clout, BRICS is now lagging behind.
The two-day summit ended with the Goa Declaration. It is a routine document with lofty rhetoric. The declaration called for further strengthening solidarity and cooperation, highlighted dangers of growing anti-globalisation, challenges of climate change, etc. The paragraphs on economic and financial matters talk of different measures to stimulate growth, but do not speak of any synergy among the members.
However, the Declaration commended the setting up of the New Development Bank (NDB), which has gone into operation in 2015. NDB, with USD100 billion capital, is essentially a Beijing brainchild to challenge the World Bank and IMF. China floated the Bank with BRICS sponsorship, as it has an enormous foreign exchange reserve, which currently stands at USD 3.21 trillion. China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) vision needs the NDB to finance infrastructure in the expanding Chinese markets in Asian countries.
The only paragraph that draws attention is on terrorism. Host Narendra Modi, without mentioning the name, lashed out at Pakistan, calling upon fellow BRICS leaders to take a strong united stand against what he called the “mothership of terrorism”. Pakistan was not named because of China’s strong pro-Pakistan stand. In fact, even before the summit began the Indian media went on a frenzy, which gave the impression that the only agenda of the conference was condemning Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. In the process, Indian media had effectively diverted world attention from the Kashmir uprising, which has already cost ninety lives and the number is rising.
As is customary with G7 and G20, BRICS Chair Narendra Modi also invited the seven BIMSTEC leaders for a BRICS-BIMSTEC outreach summit on October 16. After refusing to attend the 19th Saarc summit in Islamabad, Delhi discovered that the best way to isolate and snub Pakistan would be to invite BIMSTEC leaders rather than Saarc leaders. Some media reports in India fancied it as a Saarc meeting without Pakistan. There is a growing chorus from some myopic chauvinists in India to expel Pakistan from Saarc, which is a self-defeating idea for South Asia.
The BIMSTEC headquartered in Dhaka had had only three summits since its inception in 1997. Lack of funds has been its main handicap. BIMSTEC and BRICS will have little to do for each other, except maybe for India and China. The BRICS-BIMSTEC interface hopefully will oblige India to give up its lackadaisical attitude towards the organisation. The statement, which appeared after BIMSTEC leaders met separately, contains pledges to work on the Bangkok Declaration (1997). Before the fourth BIMSTEC summit is to be held in Nepal in 2017, it should earnestly start working on regional connectivity.
Summits provide wonderful opportunities to participating leaders to transact serious bilateral business on the sidelines. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Modi signed 20 agreements, which included defence deals worth billions of dollars to modernise India’s armed forces. Modi also raised the issue of Pakistan abetted terrorism and India’s membership of Nuclear Suppliers Group with Xi Jinping. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina discussed the long pending issue of Teesta water sharing treaty with Modi while Xi Jinping discussed bilateral issues with Nepal’s PM Pushpa Kumar Dahal.
Interestingly, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs came up with a novel elaboration of the acronym BRICS – “Building, Responsive, Inclusive, Collective, Solution” to prop up the summit, which many has criticised as outlandish and meaningless. Priorities of the summit were listed as: institution building, implementation, integration, innovation, continuity and consolidation. To any observer, these priorities will appear disjointed and bizarre. India also organised an under-17 football tournament, a film festival and a trade fair (skipped by China) to give the jamboree an aura of success.
Analysts have raised questions about BRICS’ relevance to global economy. So far the only tangible achievement of BRICS is the NDB. It has not been able to unite on geopolitical issues. The leaders have not taken any concrete decision to stimulate the global economy. However, the summit gave PM Modi’s popularity a boost in India for his strong anti-Pakistan stand.
It was actually a party of the dragon (China), the bear (Russia) and the elephant (India) who transacted some business, while the jaguar (Brazil) and the springbok (South Africa) were just onlookers. The mortar that keeps BRICS (bricks?) together is China, the second largest economy in the world. Without China, BRICS would fall apart.
The writer is a former Ambassador and Secretary.
Source: The Daily Star
