collection of articles inesc & brics

THE BRICS AND SOCIAL PARTICIPATION

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OFCIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS

Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos (INESC)

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THE BRICS AND SOCIAL PARTICIPATION

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OFCIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS

The BRICS and Social Participation from the Perspective of Civil Society Organizations

Prepared by: Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos (INESC), in partnership with Rede Brasileira pela Integração dos Povos (REBRIP)

Support:

Oxfam

General Organization: Fátima Mello

Authors:

Introduction and conclusion – INESC

Brazil Graciela Rodriguez, Coordinator of the EQUIT Institute and coordinating member of REBRIP Adhemar Mineiro, DIEESE and coordinating member of REBRIP

Russia Anna Ochkina, Institute for Global Research and Social Movements

India Srinivas Krishnaswamy and Sunita Dubey, Vasudha Foundation

ChinaDorothy-Grace Guerrero, Focus on the Global South

South Africa David Fig, Honorary Research Associate at the Environmental Evaluation Unit in the University of Cape Town and a Fellow of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam

Review: Cooperativa de Profissionais em Tradução - Unitrad

Graphic design: Scriptorium Design

The contents of this publication are the sole responsability of Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos (INESC), in partnership with Rede Brasileira pela Integração dos Povos (REBRIP), and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of Oxfam.

Complete or partial reproduction of this text is permitted as long as the author(s) are cited and the article or original text is referenced.

August 2013

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CONTENTSPRESENTATION .......................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................8

THE CIVIL SOCIETY OF THE BRICS COUNTRIES, THEIR ROLE AND IMPORTANCE ............................................................................. 14

A FEW IDEAS ABOUT BRAZIL AND THE BRICS .......................................................25

BRICS: A SPECTRE OF ALLIANCE .........................................................................31

INDIA IN THE BRICS: ITS RELEVANCE BOTH FROM A DOMESTIC PERSPECTIVE AS WELL AS THE RELEVANCE OF THE BRICS IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE .................................................................36

THE RISE OF CHINA AND EMERGING ECONOMIES: .................................................43

SOUTH AFRICA AND THE BRICS ............................................................................50

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS .......................................................................................59

ANNEXES ..............................................................................................................63

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PRESENTATION

The Brics and Social Participation from the Perspective of Civil

Society Organizations presents a panorama of the trajectory

and profile of this block of countries and provides contributions

from our partners in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Through this text the reader will identify a rich field of specificities unique to the history of each country, as well as a number of similarities and common points, which help us understand the challenges to be jointly confronted by the social organizations and movements of the countries of the block.

This publication is an initiative of INESC, together with the Rede Brasileira Pela Integração dos Povos -REBRIP (Brazilian Network for the Integration of Peoples), designed to contribute to the expansion of the debate on the BRICS and the role that civil society can and should play in the sense of influencing the course of this block of countries. The next BRICS summit will be held in 2014 in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, and we hope that this publication contributes to the preparation of the civil society activities that should be held alongside the summit of governments.

INESC thanks its partners for their contributions and wishes all a great reading.

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INTRODUCTIONThe emergence of the BRICS, a block made up of Brazil,

Russia, India, China and South Africa, as a global actor of

growing importance is taking place amid a crisis of hegemony

experienced by the international system. At the same time that

the traditional powers are losing dynamism, the economic and

political importance of the BRICS is growing, as is the potential

for change in the current correlation of forces on the global

scale.

The block began to be mentioned starting in 2001, and in 2006 its initial four members announced it within the United Nations. In 2008, the year the global crisis began, the first formal meeting of chancellors took place and in 2009, the first summit of heads of state took place in Yekaterinburg, Russia, with an agenda strongly marked by the impacts of the crisis and with indication that the block would try to have an active voice in the major decision-making processes of the international system. In 2010, the second summit occurred in Brasília, Brazil, still without the presence of South Africa, which joined the block in the third meeting held in Sanya, China, in 2011. The fourth summit took place in New Delhi, India, where the decision was made to create a Bank of the BRICS; the fifth meeting occurred in March 2013 in Durban, South Africa, marked by debate over the creation of the bank and the presence and role of the block in Africa; and the sixth will be held in Fortaleza, Brazil, in 2014, where progress in determining the details related to creation of the bank, among other items, is expected.

The demographic weight and growing economic power of the countries making up the block are very significant. The population of the five countries is almost half the global population (43%) and labor force (46%); the combined territory of the block members occupies 26% of the planet. These are countries that have a central role in their respective regions, although so far there is no indication that they will make efforts to bring the dynamics of their regions and the BRICS space together. In 2003 the BRICS represented 9% of the global GDP, and by 2009 this percentage had increased to 14%. “In terms of purchasing power parity, the GDP of the BRICS today already surpasses that of the U.S. and the European Union. In 2010, the combined GDP of the five countries

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– in terms of purchasing power parity – had already reached 19 trillion dollars, or rather, 25% of global GDP.”1 Analysts calculate that the GDP of the BRICS combined with that of Indonesia would be larger than the GDP of the OECD countries. In addition, the economies of the BRICS have some complementarities and dynamism with each other, such as between Brazil and China, where one member is an exporter of raw materials (like energy and soybeans) and the other is an importer2.

This economic power tends to translate increasingly into political power. The formation of a space for economic, financial and trade cooperation between the five countries is a novelty of great importance for the international system, and many analysts consider that the destiny of the block is to be a significant political actor in an international scenario that is becoming increasingly multipolar and where the current institutions of governance are showing clear signs of exhaustion; evidence of this is the fact that for several years there has been no consensus on the approval of international agreements in a variety of areas, such as in the case of the climate change agreements (COPs and the Kyoto Protocol), trade (a paralyzed Doha Round), and World Bank and IMF political recommendations and programs losing legitimacy and turning out to be completely contrary to solutions to the global crisis and their serious social effects.

The increase in coalitions outside the multilateral institutions and the ad hoc solutions are thus signs of an important transition in the international system, with the BRICS being one of these signs. Another is the IBAS (India, Brazil, and South Africa), whose main identity is the meeting of three large democracies of the South. On a regional scale, UNASUL represents an arrangement designed to accomplish political consensus at the regional level, independently of the United States, based on an identity that transcends trade exchanges. On the other hand, the BRICS is a pragmatic coalition, based on the interest in maximizing the power of its members, by means of their union, based on their territorial size and population, as well as their economic power. There is, however, considerable heterogeneity between its members, whose history, culture and geopolitical interest reflect wide differences, making a more organic and strategic project for the future more difficult. Two of its members, for example, do not share the democratic values and systems adopted by the others, producing important obstacles to formation of an agenda of common long term interests.

1 José Luís Fiori – “O Brasil e seu ‘entorno estratégico’ na primeira década do século XXI”, Carta Maior, May 2013.

2 See Figures 1 and 2 below.

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The BRICS are organized around two major operating pillars. First, a pillar turned inward, focused on fostering intra-block cooperation in a variety of development areas, such as trade, peace, health, urbanism, science and technology, agriculture, youth, and joint action in multilateral institutions and global forums, among others. In this regard, the declaration of the New Delhi Summit outlined intra-block lines of cooperation. Authorization to start negotiations for creation of the Bank of the BRICS was also given in New Delhi, aiming to demonstrate real operating ability of the block vis-a-vis the traditional donors. New steps were taken in this direction at the Durban Summit in South Africa, also signaling that the BRICS, through the bank, intend to play an important role in financing projects in Africa. Much remains to be decided, such as the capital composition, governance, the decision-making process, and the geographic scope of investments. It is expected that at the next summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, one of the main results will be a founding agreement for the bank.

The second pillar is the operation of the block in coordinating positions with regard to reform of the international system. Actions questioning the current global governance combined with an attempt to reform it indicate that the BRICS are not planning to replace the existing institutions, but rather modify the correlation of forces and reduce the asymmetry of power in the current institutionalization.

The BRICS have cooperated on diverse agendas and forums of global governance. One of the arenas of greater involvement of the block has been the G20 and the Bretton Woods institutions, where there is greater convergence between the block members on the need to modify the governance mechanisms. The agenda of economic-financial reform is without a doubt the one of greatest consensus of the members, contrary to the case of issues of peace and security, where China and Russia have permanent seats on the security council and the other members are requesting them – in this agenda the block members appear to have basic agreement with respect to the need to transition from a unipolar core to a decision-making process that includes new actors, but does not go much further than this.

On the other hand, in the economic-financial arena the block acts in a more cohesive and proactive manner. In the G20 it sends proposals to deal with the global economic crisis and for reform of the IMF quota composition and governance of the World Bank. Aiming to expand its economic and political influence, at the Sanya Summit, in China, at the height of the global crisis, the BRICS decided to contribute to the European Stabilization Fund and provide US$ 75 billion to the IMF (US$ 43 billion from China, US$ 10 billion from Brazil, US$ 10 billion from India, US$ 10 billion from Russia and US$ 2 billion from South Africa), in order to support a Europe in crisis. At the Durban Summit, in South

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Africa, the block announced that it would cooperate financially with countries outside the block, introducing a new pillar to its actions related to this agenda item; the BRICS would invest in infrastructure in less developed countries.

Beyond the G20 and the Bretton Woods institutions, the BRICS consider the environment of the United Nations most favorable for action on some agenda items. This is the case of the architecture of international cooperation, where the BRICS resist following rules set by the OECD. For this reason the BRICS did not formalize their participation in the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation created at the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Busan, South Korea, in 2011, in spite of the fact that this forum consolidated recognition of South-South cooperation and no longer just the cooperation of traditional donors within the scope of the OECD. In a scenario where the architecture of international cooperation, accompanying a global order in transition, became a multipolar system, Busan approved a Global Partnership that was born within the OECD, although UN agencies such as the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the United Nations Program for Development (UNDP) also came to be a part of this partnership. By not formalizing their membership in the Global Partnership that emerged from Busan, the BRICS signaled that they do not want to be bound within the OECD by the rules and conditions for South-South cooperation that it is implementing and that they will act in a coordinated manner to increasingly remove the centrality of the North from governance of the cooperation system.

This does not mean that South-South cooperation by BRICS member countries is not permeated with a host of problems, especially in light of the fact that in spite of the rhetoric of horizontality, solidarity, non-intervention, and knowledge exchange for mutual learning, in practice, the presence of these countries has been marked by problems similar to those observed in traditional North-South cooperation, such as the definition of initiatives based on geopolitical, economic, investment and trade promotion interests. With respect to South-South cooperation, however, the BRICS members have so far maintained a rhetoric different from that of North-South cooperation, but have not substantially differentiated themselves in their practices.

The BRICS seek to also strengthen the environment of the United Nations when dealing with the environmental and climate change agenda. As a rule, their positions are anchored in the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, such that the countries of the block – late to industrialization and without new technologies favorable to production processes with low levels of greenhouse gas emissions – do not want to assume international obligations and commitments that could block their economic growth and industrial production. Consequently, they generally act defensively. In their

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favor is the fact that the United States, which has a large responsibility for the historical emission of greenhouse gases, resists accepting the multilateral commitments and regimes, as in the case of the Kyoto Protocol. This posture leaves room for the BRICS to defend with some margin of comfort the multilateral institutionalization of this agenda, especially the treaties and conventions signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 during the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development when, among other regimes, the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change was created and which today still governs negotiations in this area.

So far, however, the BRICS tend to move by combining, at the same time, the creation of new poles of power and actions focused on strengthening multilateralism. However, for the international system to be substantially democratized, it is not enough for new actors to be strengthened; it is necessary for new agendas – to deal with inequalities, strengthen human rights, social participation and environmental and climate justice – to be valued and defended by new actors. This is the great challenge the BRICS face.

In spite of the efforts aiming to reduce poverty made by some countries over the last decades, the world continues to be extremely unequal and the BRICS member countries as well. Almost all the members of the G20 have recorded growing income inequality, while income has fallen in some lower income countries. Among the BRICS member countries, Brazil and China have made important initiatives aiming to reduce their poverty rates; nevertheless, the levels of inequality within the countries remain high, although their national economies have reduced the distances in relation to the richer countries3.

Figure 3 below shows that the BRICS are still extremely unequal, including in relation to the OECD. South Africa and Brazil are the most unequal within the block, although a comparison with the decade of the 1990s shows that Brazil was the only BRICS country where income inequality was reduced; in all the other members of the block, as well as in the OECD, inequalities increased (especially in China and India) between the start of the 1990s and the end of the 2000s.

Human rights are a great challenge for the block and expose the difficulties the BRICS have in building a common project for the future guided by a democratic agenda. One thing is to defend reduction of asymmetry between national states and democratization of the international order, something the block has done effectively. Another, much

3 Figure taken from Courtney Ivins - “Inequality Matters – BRICS Inequalities Fact Sheet”, BRICS Policy Center and Oxfam, s/d.

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more difficult, is to promote democratization, citizenship and the strengthening of human rights within the countries that make up the block. China’s labor policies, for example, are a huge source of rights violations and pressure to lower standards that govern labor relations in the world, both regarding salaries and work conditions and production processes.

The immense challenges existing in the BRICS relative to dealing with inequality, rights violations and construction of fairer and more democratic societies require that social participation be strengthened within and between block members. Participation is a path that makes it possible to discuss and democratize the decision-making process related to the destination of wealth produced, favoring its distribution. Today, however, it can be seen that the block members do not have adequate participation mechanisms. In some countries, social organizations and movements play the role of service providers and executors of programs and they do not have the chance to be actors on the political plane; in other countries these organizations and movements have often been criminalized and persecuted for their activities of resistance, mobilization and citizen training.

Initiatives carried forward by the BRICS still lack definition of mechanisms to allow social participation. This is the case, for example, in the lack of transparency mechanisms, access to information and accountability in negotiations to create the block bank. It is also the case in the decision to give US$ 75 billion to the IMF, an institution that continues to recommend highly questionable austerity policies. How was this decision made? Which actors participated? Society and the parliaments of the countries that make up the block were not consulted.

So far, cases of participation in the block are a Business Forum and an Academic Forum. There appears to be no consensus between block member countries on participation by social organizations and movements. The debate over creation of some institutionalized mechanism for social participation in the block will have to be held in the next summit to take place in Fortaleza, Brazil.

In a global scenario marked by responses to the crisis with austerity policies that roll back rights gained and increase inequality, the BRICS have a chance to strengthen their role as a global actor defending the opposite of the traditional powers: strengthening rights, reducing inequality and making room for citizen participation in defining future directions. This publication is a contribution in this direction.

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THE CIVIL SOCIETY OF THE BRICS COUNTRIES, THEIR ROLE AND IMPORTANCEGraciela RodríguezCoordinator of the EQUIT Institute and coordinating member of the Brazilian Network for the Integration of Peoples (REBRIP)4

THE BRICS AND THEIR IMPORTANCE TODAY

One of the biggest changes in the international scenario in recent years has been the enormous importance of the emerging countries during the global crisis, in particular, the largest of them, the so-called BRICS5. Although the birth of the acronym occurred in 2001 in an article by the Goldman Sachs economist, Jim O’Neill, who studied the investment potential of several countries in the South, it was only in 2009 that the group was formalized at the Heads of State Summit held in Yekaterinburg, Russia. There, for the first time, the group met, establishing its initial declaration that set the common bases for this new global geopolitical coalition, completed in 2011 with the incorporation of South Africa.

However, it is possible to trace the origins and the first initiatives of this coalition of countries beyond the creation of the acronym, since they occurred before the creation of the group and are related to the major changes in the international scenario at the turn of the century. Perhaps the indication of greatest relevance goes back to the start of the last decade, when the U.S. and Europe were the great international actors, particularly the economies of the so-called Group of 7 (G7). These already developed countries watched, with a certain distain, but not without fears, the forecasts of continuing growth for China, India, Russia and Brazil, which at that time indicated that the sum of their GDPs would already be greater than that of the U.S. economy by 2018.

4 http://www.equit.org.br/novo/ and http://www.rebrip.org.br/.

5 An international political-strategic relationship that unites Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

http://www.equit.org.br/novo/

http://www.rebrip.org.br/

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The political approximation of the BRICS countries was demonstrated and established in various global forums, especially in the UN and in meetings of the IMF and WB, but also in the sphere of the WTO and others. Despite the differences between the BRICS countries in terms of participation and emphasis in global trade, it was Brazil, India, China, and later, the entry of South Africa, that created the so-called agricultural G20 in the WTO in 20036, which was essential in rejecting the U.S. and European Union proposal in the area of agriculture and their traditional leadership of the negotiations. Thus, assuming and leading the initiative, initially Brazilian, against agricultural liberalization and the maintenance of high subsidies for domestic production and agricultural exports of the more developed countries, this G20 was able to change the course of negotiations in agriculture, altering the course of the traditional power relationships in trade negotiations. This was certainly one of the great moments of strategic approximation between these emerging countries, which made the need for deepening and consolidating this coalition clear to express this change in Northern dominance of global governing forums.

But it was in 2006, at the UN General Assembly meeting, that the BRICS countries met informally for the first time for the purpose of determining a path toward the creation of a more permanent forum for strategic approximation, which among other topics would include the support of China and Russia for the efforts of India and Brazil to obtain permanent seats on the UN Security Council.

In 2008, with the explosion of the global economic-financial crisis, the BRICS countries and other so-called emerging countries, which had maintained important economic growth, were called to make up the G20. The invitation by the G7 (which at times included Russia and became the G8) was made to the BRICS and other emerging countries because they had become indispensable to the economic recovery of the central countries from the financial crisis, thanks to the high level of monetary reserves they held.

The 1st Heads of State Summit and BRICS Governments, held in June 2009 in Yekaterinburg, followed the first meeting of the financial G20 assembled at short notice in Washington in November 2008. This formal origin very linked to the debates and disputes that consolidated and came to light during the formation of the financial G20, clearly shows the importance of the BRICS, which formalized basically to address the “new” challenges of global governance. Challenges that they themselves contributed to building over the last decade and that lead to the extinction of the unipolar hegemonic system and the start of multilateralization of the international scenario.

6 Russia only joined the WTO after many years of negotiations, in 2011.

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Since then there have been various accords and issues explored in a converging manner by the BRICS countries, and these aspects reveal the importance of the BRICS in the current international scenario since they express not only a common economic perspective, but the establishment of an environment of political relationship outside the traditional realm of the Northern powers.

To begin with, because they, from the start, recognized the importance of acting together to advance multilateral diplomacy and a “fair and balanced economic system7,” strengthening the need for peaceful resolution of conflicts and reaffirming the importance of dialogue in issues of global security and peace, as well as South-South cooperation for the world to advance in sustainable development based on three pillars: social, economic and environmental. The importance of international trade and a common discourse against the protectionism of the developed countries were also part of the converging elements of the BRICS that marked a contesting position in the global environment, and particularly in the WTO.

Some of the decisions made in Yekaterinburg and later are particularly important, such as the Declaration on Food Security, the emphasis on support for family-run farms and small farmers and food access for vulnerable populations, points of common interest to the BRICS countries, but particularly defended by Brazil and India, which already have had a decisive importance in agricultural negotiations and which now confirm a guiding course with important weight in global discussions of these issues.

Thus, and related to this perspective, another of the distinguishing points of agreement among the BRICS that is of crucial importance with regard to one of the greatest global problems, refers to the commitment of the countries of the group to overcoming the poverty that continues to be one of their common characteristics and that has been one of their priorities. The modalities of this poverty that have similar aspects and, at the same time, many differences between the countries can allow deepening of discussions essential to the world, given that the BRICS countries hold the majority of the planet’s poor. Recognition of the diversity and multidimensionality of poverty, especially in its relationship with the need to develop rural areas and provide food security, has increased the possibilities for forming common strategies, as well as promoting agreements in the areas of trade, cooperation and technological innovation.

7 Declaration of Yekaterinburg - http://www.itamaraty.gov.br/sala-de-imprensa/notas-a-im-prensa/2009/06/17/cupula-dos-chefes-de-estado-e-de-governo-dos-brics/

http://www.itamaraty.gov.br/sala-de-imprensa/notas-a-imprensa/2009/06/17/cupula-dos-chefes-de-estado-e-de-governo-dos-brics/?searchterm=Declara%C3%A7%C3%A3o de Ecaterimburgo

http://www.itamaraty.gov.br/sala-de-imprensa/notas-a-imprensa/2009/06/17/cupula-dos-chefes-de-estado-e-de-governo-dos-brics/?searchterm=Declara%C3%A7%C3%A3o de Ecaterimburgo

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Another aspect of great importance and that is currently one of the elements of greatest group cohesion, refers to the central role of the BRIC initially – and later with South Africa incorporated in 2010 – in regulation of the international financial system to effectively deal with the global economic crisis. However, if within the G20 the BRICS countries initially emphasized the need for regulation and other measures to control the financial system, contradictorily and among the main concrete actions taken, are the financial contributions of these countries to the IMF, which were essential to the recovery of the IFIs, right when the fund and the World Bank itself were discredited and “faced the worst crisis in their history8.”

The emerging countries, and among them primarily the BRICS, were responsible for providing crucial funds to the IMF – amounts that ensured the survival and recovery of this financial institution – in exchange for reforms of global governance of the IFIs and increased participation shares in them. These measures, which would clearly demonstrate the new power of the BRICS, in fact have still not taken effect.

At the same time, and as an apparent counterpoint, it is necessary to point out that perhaps the most concrete and promising perspective of this coalition of countries arose from this common critical view of the role of the IFIs. In this sense, the proposal to create a Bank of the BRICS appeared with a certain alternative character in light of the traditional role of the World Bank, seeking new forms of global financing architecture that can in practice result in significant changes to the international financial system. Thus, the initiative to create the Bank of the BRICS approved in the Durban summit in March 2013 outlines the role the bank should play in relation to the mobilization of emerging country resources for infrastructure and sustainable development. Although the bank did not have its institutional profile or organizational design yet defined in Durban, nor its governance model or operating currency, or whether it will support developing countries other than the BRICS, the joint declaration already indicates a role different from that of the WB, in its detailing of the need to support more fair and inclusive development in the global economy. The Bank of the BRICS would thus become one of the main concrete advances of the block and its importance in relation to the WB would be unquestionable. In fact, “the initial proposal would be to capitalize 50 billion dollars, which would represent an amount 29.1 billion dollars higher than that offered for policies to advance infrastructure in developing countries by the World Bank in 2010.”9

8 Aguiar Diana. “Uma Alternativa desde el Sur” Publication of the EQUIT Institute, TNI and the PAAR Initiative. 2013.

9 Jesus, Diego Santos. “Os principais pontos na agenda da Cúpula de Durban”. Brics Policy Cen-ter. Paper. March 2013. Avaiable in www.bricspolicycenter.org.

www.bricspolicycenter.org

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Finally, it is important to note that one of the strong points of the BRICS initiative is that its member countries, in addition to being “emerging powers” as they have been called, are actually leaders in their regions. This is a characteristic of the BRICS countries that has been little explored in the history of the group, however it is of essential geopolitical and strategic importance. Although there are some contradictions and disputes, particularly between China and India for determining the regional role of both, the fact that the countries in the group are keys to their respective regional environments can doubly empower their global role while at the same time their capacity to cause changes in the regional environments. In this sense the course of expansion of multilateralism and the new financial architecture that the BRICS have promoted will be able to have strong regional impacts in the “developing” world, and their cause then becomes crucial for the global economic and social directions.

However, it is also important to emphasize that, at the same time the BRICS are acquiring this aforementioned importance in the new international geopolitical framework, the diversity and asymmetries existing between the countries that form part of the relationship also represent challenges and obstacles to the achievement of various tasks essential for the democratization of the global system. Although there are many elements that brought the BRICS countries together to formalize this relationship, there are also many differences and inequalities that can obstruct or make more improbable its institutionalization or joint action in various matters.

While there are strong elements of common appeal, among which the fact that they are countries with high population concentration and strong levels of social inequality, with vast territories with important stocks of natural resources highly valued in the international market, together with the fact that they have robust economies which saw their international role grow in recent years, the distancing factors are not small or insignificant.

With regard to the agenda for reform of the international financial system, for instance, each of the countries in the group have very different emphases and aspects and thus, the possibility of deepening the relationship is very limited by the different visions, perspectives and concrete interests. In addition, the very creation of the Bank of the BRICS showed the divergence of interests and even political times of each of the countries in the block with regard to a proposal of common interest.

If the economic and financial interests are very diverse, when we analyze the political differences and forms of government, the distances appear even greater. The political models range from expanding, although weak, democracies, as in the case of Brazil and

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South Africa, or India, with social classes and inequalities crystallized by the post-colonial state, to “really existing” carryover states from socialism with planned economies and strong authoritarian styles – often repressive – such as China and Russia.

In summary, there are many possibilities and obstacles, and only the process of building the block and its interaction within the global framework will determine its effective consolidation and historical importance.

BRAZIL IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

In fact, Brazil’s foreign policy has undergone very significant changes in recent years, apparently related to the political orientation of the Lula administration since the start of its term beginning in 2003. However, these changes were also made during a favorable international situation of deep and rapid geopolitical changes, for which the Brazilian position itself was essential. Within the new international context, Brazil has been invited to participate in the group of the 20 most important global economies, and this has clearly caused changes in its thinking about its international policy.

The leadership role of Brazil in the regional scenario has also been widely mentioned and recognized by countries, both for its economic weight and vigor, as well as the political choices the country has made in recent years in both regional (Mercosul, UNASUL and, more recently, the CELAC) and multilateral agreements.

Starting right with the global financial crisis that substantially modified the international context, Brazil has sought to enhance its role in the various international scenarios, in the traditional North/South relations, as well as in the South/South strategic relationships, giving special importance to the process of forming the BRICS.

If on one hand, Brazil has continued its previous strategic of consolidating its international presence and role as global trader, on the other hand, especially in the last four years, the country has sought to drive and strengthen its alliance with the BRICS countries, aiming to play a more important role within the G20 and the global governance system.

From this perspective, Brazil has prioritized its participation in the BRICS to advance the agenda of strengthening multilateralism, with which the countries of this block agree, but also to try to achieve some changes to the international financial system and especially the role of the emerging countries within the IFIs.

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Thus, an important action of Brazil within the G20 was that of strengthening its role as a contributing member of the IMF (including increasing its initial contribution of 10 billion dollars to 14), forming, together with the other emerging countries, part of the process to re-legitimize the bank and the international financial architecture.

In fact, this strategy of the Brazilian government has given it access to the elite of the global financial system, together with China and the rest of the emerging countries.

In this way, the strategy of bringing the emerging countries together and participating in the BRICS has served to increase and strengthen Brazil’s global role, while at the same time leveraging its own position in terms of global leadership and operation as a “model” in various political proposals, especially with its “fighting hunger,” family income, known as Bolsa Família (Family Stipend), family agricultural support, and other programs.

Among the important aspects of this leadership role it is necessary to recognize the engagement of the Brazilian government to defend development for the countries of the South, which has been firmly established and is at the base of the new international geopolitics, or, stated in another way, in the perspectives opened for its strategy of democratizing global governance.

From this perspective, the possibility is more evident of Brazil asserting a democratic agenda within the BRICS countries, seeking to make advances with regard to the challenge to neoliberal policies and liberalization of trade and investment that it seeks to aggressively reposition itself with regard to the solutions to the global financial economic crisis. Brazil’s need to strengthen proposals to regulate the financial system and control the rules for global investment flows, as well as its position with regard to the “currency exchange war,” would be essential to the BRICS agenda.

On the other hand, its position with regard to strengthening the role of national states also becomes important faced with the current weakness of states, which neoliberalism has caused with liberalization and the guarantee of corporate security. In spite of the enormous differences between the political regimes of the BRICS countries, which is clearly one of the major obstacles to deepening this relationship process, the idea of the centrality of the state in overcoming inequalities and promoting development is a common perspective that confronts the idea/view of the minimal state and its new versions on the agenda.

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ROLE AND AGENDA OF THE BRAZILIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS IN THE BRICS INITIATIVES

The importance of Brazilian social movements has been largely noted and analyzed. The role of the social organizations and movements influencing national politics, as well as the regional and international environment, has been growing since the 1980s. The mobilizations were consolidating and finding expression in the 1988 constitutional process, in the fight against the neoliberal model and the privatizations of the 1990s and, especially, in the fight against the FTAA, which was decisive in the political changes not only in Brazil, but in all of Latin America in the first decade of the 21st century.

In turn, the first decade of the century has seen the consolidation and, in a certain sense, institutionalization of the capabilities of labor and peasant movements, in particular, at the same time that it has allowed the expansion of movements of students, women and blacks, and seen even more recently the strong mobilizing process of the indigenous people and quilombola movements, and the territorial and environmental movements in general.

The strategies related to the growth model, and its possibilities for distributing surplus income from land and agribusiness production are now faced with growing criticism of the extractivist and natural resource exportation model that has serious territorial and environmental impacts, and this has fragmented the views and perspectives of the various Brazilian social movements.

The current time of strong and broad social mobilizations has brought enormous political challenges, but also the need for new readings and analyses of future possibilities for continuation of the redistributive pact without class confrontation experienced in Brazil over the last decade10, in the sense of continuing to increase the social achievements and, particularly, reduce social inequalities, particularly of gender and race. Moreover, this is an issue very dear to the current government and the BRICS as a whole, and one for which Brazil has played a “model” role to be followed.

The contradictions of the old and updated Brazilian development model, in spite of the important advances made in income distribution and in overcoming extreme poverty,

10 Singer, André. “Os sentidos do Lulismo: reforma gradual e pacto conservador.” Companhia das Letras. 2012.

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appear to be sharpening and perhaps reaching a limit in its form of social inclusion through consumption. It is not just the ecological limits of the planet, but particularly the real fights and confrontations related to agribusiness, megaprojects, energy generation, and the displacement cost of the populations, among other fights that occur in the territories, that are demanding structural political and socioeconomic changes. At the same time, the protesting crowds in the streets of Brazil, which show the general dissatisfaction of the population, also reflect the need to expand rights and public policies, especially in the urban environments to where the population has been pushed over the last 40 years by an accelerated urbanization process.

Consequently, it is risky to make forecasts today of the role of social movements that are – not only in Brazil, but in the entire world – changing their tactics and organizational forms, but everything seems to indicate the course of advances and qualitative changes in their operation and density.

In turn, the predominance of the national agenda may possibly bring a reduction of the presence of Brazilian social movements in the international environment in the short term, and, consequently, within the society of the BRICS countries. However, this will probably be temporary, to the extent that many aspects of the changes to the national agenda, which the correlation of forces is imposing, depend on global fights to achieve changes in the traditional international division of labor and the outcome of the global crisis and the extent of reform of the international financial system.

The initiatives of the social movements in Brazil in relation to the BRICS countries, although still quite limited in number and in cumulative knowledge or analyses, have a relatively significant historical weight because they have grown in the global struggles against the neoliberal model since the mid-1990s, continuing to confront the conditions imposed by the IFIs, they have strengthened in the battles with the WTO, in the climate negotiations and in Rio+20, and they continue in various environments due to the global financial crisis.

The Brazilian social movements, especially the labor ones, but also those of peasants, women and others, have in recent years been establishing relationships and deepening political ties to other social movements, especially in the IBAS countries.11 On the other hand, many initiatives of the diverse social organizations of the BRICS countries have been built on a base of specific issues (such as intellectual property, the fight against AIDS, the campaign for food independence, taxation of financial transactions, etc.),

11 IBAS – Dialogue forum formalized in 2003 between India, Brazil and South Africa.

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forming a broad network and a solid base for linking social movements of the BRICS countries12.

The challenge for Brazilian social movements to unite with movements in the other BRICS countries is strategically important, although difficult and very contradictory, just as connection with the social organizations of the less developed countries, particularly in Latin America and Africa, is also essential. Understanding the role of the BRICS and having an impact on the actions of the Brazilian government within this initiative has become important for the organized civil society in Brazil, since this coalition is one of existing paths with potential to become more transparent and modify the global agenda in terms of expanding the participation of the so-called developing countries. Without overly ambitious expectations, since, as already mentioned, the differences and democratic deficit of the BRICS countries do not support great optimism, their joint efforts can lead to more noteworthy action in favor of the interests of the global South and should be promoted in this sense.

CHALLENGES AND CONCLUSIONS

The sense of operation and course of the BRICS will certainly be very connected to the actions of the civil societies of the countries that form part of this relationship initiative. Analyzing the similarities and differences in the composition and forms of behavior of the social movements of the BRICS countries is beyond the possibilities of this analysis; however, reflection on the extent of the role, not just that the BRICS can play in global governance, but also in global changes in the next years, has become a more pressing need.

Consequently, and in spite of the great hindrances and obstacles to deepening the relationship between the BRICS, they – together with the social organizations and movements in these countries – have the possibility and challenge of promoting such changes. The importance of a coordinating voice for these emerging countries that seeks to be heard in the global environment is expressed essentially through its main operational objective that is “to strengthen a new form of global governance13.” However, it will be the fight between the multiple political factors of these governments with their societies (and not only those of the BRICS countries) that will play a central

12 The next meeting of the G20 in Russia may allow a still initial and small connection with its social movements.

13 Os BRICS na OMC, IPEA. .

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role in determining the direction and orientation of the changes and achievements that will be made in the process of democratizing global governance.

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A FEW IDEAS ABOUT BRAZIL AND THE BRICSAdhemar MineiroDIEESE and coordinating member of the Brazilian Network for the Integration of Peoples (REBRIP)

In Brazil, when we talk about the BRICS countries, we usually

think about a heterogeneous group of countries with apparently

very different relationships with each other.

With some, like China, economic affairs – especially trade and investments – get greater attention. With others, like Russia, the focus is on our important meat market and the fact that both countries export mineral commodities. This aspect also draws us closer to South Africa. This and the fact that our recent histories are similar – struggles against the dictatorship here and against apartheid there – which resulted in two large democracies with enormous inequality issues to be tackled. This aspect, like our colonial past, also draws us close to India. But it is difficult to grasp what would unite such a heterogeneous and geographically scattered group.

However, if we look at them together in the most recent period of global geopolitical history, the importance of this group of countries seems to bring some consistency to it as a group. Regional significance, in their different regions, the search for political and geopolitical standing, economic growth and their growing importance in the global market, and the huge social and regional inequality issues to be addressed are just some of the characteristics common to this group of countries.

But, above all, one could point to the search for and construction of a multipolar world to bring about a new situation, a new modus operandi in the relationship between these countries and the U.S., with which, for various reasons, they dialogue with different agendas and they have relationships where situations of cooperation and conflict can occur simultaneously.

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In a text from the first Lula administration14, then Foreign Affairs Minister Celso Amorim listed a number of issues that should guide Brazilian foreign policy in the next few years. Among these issues, we can highlight:

• “The Lula administration’s diplomatic action is conceived as a support tool for the country’s social and economic development project”;

• Brazilian diplomacy should have “a humanist dimension aiming to promote international cooperation for development and peace”;

• It should be based on “a profound awareness of the interdependence between our fate and that of our South American neighbors.” This includes not only economic and trade agreements, but also the integration of peoples, societies, and cultures;

• The belief that “a global multipolar order would pave the way for a safer, more stable environment, providing better development conditions for all parties,” but to intervene in this order, we need a regionally cohesive environment in South America.

• In the case of multilateral trade negotiations, at the WTO, this also means a wider view about how to conduct trade by having the G-20 (a group of developing and mid-sized countries created during the WTO’s Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003) in these negotiations, aiming to be an intervention catalyst for its interests and those of the region (“If the South American group gets closer to other developing countries, its importance and ability to negotiate will be strengthened.”);

• Furthermore, with regard to trade, the strengthening of relationships with developed countries should proceed “with the current interest in expanding trade exchanges,” that is, with an FTAA on new terms, if possible, and an agreement with the European Union, and both cases should include the idea of deepening political dialogue between the countries and/or blocks;

• UN reform;

• Internationally structuring new political and economic negotiation axes (first, the

14 Amorim, Celso. Concepts and strategies of diplomacy of the Lula government. In Diplomacy, Strategy and Policy. Vol 1, No. 1 (Oct/2004). Brasilia: Project Raúl Prebisch, 2004.

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“IBSA” – India, Brazil, and South Africa connection, but also dynamically increasing diplomatic and economic relations with Russia and China).

These points, adapted with regard to the significant changes that have taken place in the global situation since 2004, still continue to be fundamental to understanding Brazil’s diplomatic strategy since then.

It is worth highlighting the fact that the last strategic point in the foreign policy orientation directly relates not only to the BRICS, but also the formation of the IBSA connection.

In the case of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the “S” was added later, when South Africa joined the group), there were two important ideas, combining what was considered at the time the relevant economic space outside the so-called “triad” (US, Japan, and Europe).

With India and South Africa (the so-called IBSA group, also structured and operative), to form a kind of “lower level group” of important regional developing countries, formally democratic and operating in accordance with the triad, not just to expand trade, but also to advance a more structural agenda including common topics, such as development, income distribution, relations with social movements, and sustainability, among others. Moreover, it is noteworthy that this group of countries, somehow, owing to its diplomatic and geopolitical weight, claims permanent participation in the UN Security Council, which the other two BRICS countries bar.

The next step should be to move the discussion “upstairs” with Russia and China (members of the UN Security Council), including the issues of the economic G-20, the UN, international financial institutions, financial aspects of development (and, again, the importance of proposals such as the Reserve Contingency Agreement, of the so-called “Bank of the BRICS,” and the idea of a system to allow for trade in national currencies between the BRICS countries). There is, however, a number of differences (political, social, ethnic, military, economic, and geopolitical, among others), including the fundamentally different perspectives relative to the global scenario today and in the near future, where some members of the group have more privileged positions than the others.

In the case of Brazil (and South Africa), compared to the other BRICS members, there is still a fundamental difference: the power of transnational corporations from developed countries within these two national economies, which means that many

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strategic decisions about investment, technology, trade strategy, and how to organize productive chains, among others, are made abroad.

So, in a way, the Brazilian strategy of “betting” on a grouping like the BRICS, is inserted within a more general view according to which by playing on several “boards” at the same time, it is possible to gain synergies, instead of scattering and weakening initiatives.

The BRICS is a very functional group in the efforts carried out by Brazilian foreign policy recently. It allows, to a certain degree, the accumulation forces for virtually every major Brazilian diplomatic move on virtually all stages where the country is simultaneously acting, with perhaps one important and strategic exception, that is, the matter of regional integration (and, even so, an assessment can be made that Latin American regional integration is a critical contradiction between Brazil and the U.S. and, therefore, the connection with the other BRICS can provide negotiating power that is necessary with the US within this regional integration strategy).

The idea that diplomatic action focuses on establishing a new social and economic development project for the country is very clear in what could be called a “BRICS strategy.” The attempt to establish public policies that can somehow address the regional and social inequality issue and contribute to reduce it is one of these aspects. But also a strategy to diversify economic relationships, where, especially, a defensive strategy to manage vulnerability abroad, like the Reserve Contingency Agreement (which would allow the countries in the block to help each other in case of difficulties with their balance of payments, that is, as some say, a kind of “BRICS IMF”), can articulate with offensive development strategies. This could include the agreement to expand mutual trade using local currency in the five countries of the group, or such as the New Development Bank, or BRICS Development Bank, which could make investments in companies and projects in the countries of the block or outside it feasible. As for trade, however, we must observe a certain imbalance within the group itself, because if on one hand trade relations grow in the group overall, on the other, this growth tends to concentrate (clearly) in bilateral relationships between each of the countries in the group and China.

With regard to the “humanist” view of Brazilian diplomacy, the BRICS connection provides national diplomacy with some “muscle” to, together, operate on the more general world stage. For Brazil, working with the BRICS now means a move from the traditional focus on Latin America. Brazilian diplomatic actions involving Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency and, more recently, Libya and Syria probably would not have been

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carried out outside the context of participation in the BRICS group, which demands a lot of effort by Brazilian diplomacy to take more global positions.

As for trade strategy, we should notice that this alliance allows the organization of the so-called “trade G-20,” a group that expresses itself and acts within the WTO, of which India, South Africa, and Brazil are key players from the outset, and in which China has recently started to participate more actively. That is, it reinforces Brazil’s intervention capacity in a multilateral forum as important as the World Trade Organization.

With regard to the world leaders’ G-20, formed at the beginning of the world economic crisis in 2008, the BRICS group enables Brazil to have greater intervention capacity within the G-20, which would otherwise be absolutely unattainable. In this group, the countries in the BRICS group also have enormous differences in their integration. Russia was already a member of the old G-8 (which used to be G-7 – the U.S., England, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and Italia – plus Russia) and China, owing to its level of reserves and weight in global trade, could even participate in a G-2, a kind of direct tête-à-tête with the U.S. (which perhaps would not be particularly interesting for China, since creating a direct agenda with the U.S. would open up a possibly enormous area of potential conflict which, within a multilateral agenda, such as the G-20, ends up reduced or diluted). However, for the other three BRICS, though in different ways, forming the group gives them a greater role in the different discussions in the G-20 than they would have if they were not connected to this group, or even if they formed a mere IBSA connection. The central points in the BRICS grouping within the G-20 have so far been the defense of an alternative strategy to handle the crisis that would not necessarily follow the adjustment policy advocated by the European Union and the power reform within the multilateral financial institutions, particularly the World Bank and the IMF. Curiously, the BRICS are much more opposed to the EU than to the U.S. on both points.

As the ties between the BRICS countries get stronger, it is also possible that there may be more coordinated work on UN system topics. Nevertheless, it is crucial to acknowledge the fact that there is an older agenda and a history, and there are asymmetric situations within the group (as previously mentioned, while Russia has been a member since the foundation of the UN, in 1946, of the group of permanent members of the Security Council, under the previously more encompassing name, though led by the Russians, of the USSR – Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics – and the People’s Republic of China, since 1971, India, Brazil, and South Africa, when they participate in the council, do so as elected members, without veto power, for example), traditional positions that are much harder to change, among other situations. Still,

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the BRICS have recently tried to consult one another and coordinate on topics on the UN agenda, so that there are no significant conflicts or uncomfortable situations that would interfere with the continuation of a deepening discussion agenda among them.

Finally, it is noteworthy that four of the BRICS countries, all except Russia, express themselves and attempt to reach common ground positions on the topics related to the UN’s climate change conferences agenda, forming the so-called “BASIC Group.” The countries have played an important role, since the creation of the group, in the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15), in Copenhagen, Denmark. The absence of Russia is due to the fact that the country is an important exporter of energy commodities (oils and gas) and, therefore, has quite defensive (more conservative) positions with regard to climate change.

With regard to social participation and the BRICS, it is first necessary to point out that the current situation is that the various national societies have little knowledge about the topics on the BRICS agenda. Between countries like Brazil and South Africa, there are many more points in common on the agenda and a greater relationship between the social societies and movements in both countries, slightly less with regard to India (with which South Africa has more intersecting points, thanks to the Indian population in South Africa or to economic ties between both countries), but with regard to Russia and China, relationships are much less intense. Even so, Brazil has had a growing interest in the BRICS recently (due to the contradictory economic relationship with China and concerns about the effects of the BRICS in relation to the expansion of Brazilian transnational companies in Africa, especially mining, construction, and agribusiness companies).

For the future, however, it is possible to foresee the creation of many more channels of communication between the social organizations of the five countries than exist today. Topics such as the BRICS Development Bank and other economic issues, with their effects on the populations in the different countries, may build important bridges between the social movements and organizations in the five countries. Exchanging experiences based on a national agenda to face issues related to inequality may also pave the way for stronger relationships. The union movement, in particular, has been establishing contact points to express concerns that are common to the five countries, despite the heterogeneity with regard to the union movement in each country. It is possible that these articulations will soon point more directly toward the need to create space for social participation within the scope of official governmental space in the BRICS, just as there are already common business and academic spaces.

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BRICS: A SPECTRE OF ALLIANCE Anna OchkinaInstitute for Global Research and Social Movements15

1. The construction of BRICS is in many ways artificial. This alliance is more visible in the media debates than in practical international politics. But is there a reason for these countries to get together except making real fantasies of experts and journalists? Yes, there is. Though these countries are so different in so many ways they still have a lot in common:

a) their position as semi-periphery within global capitalist system as strong countries playing an important though not dominant role in the process of neoliberal globalization;

b) their social and economic policies, though not completely following neoliberal patterns stay within the framework of neoliberal model;

c) all these countries practice neoliberal economic policies, but neither country is orthodox in this respect (till recently they were able to combine free market approach with some elements of social redistribution, state intervention and other measures that somehow compensated market failures).

2. Every country from this group has a specific role in the capitalist world-system. Every of these countries provides resources which determine its position and function in the system. Brazil is essential for agricultural supplies, China provides cheap labour, India supplies cheap intellectual work force for high tech industries, South Africa provides minerals and Russia supplies minerals, oil and gas. The scale and conditions of provision of these resources for global capital makes BRICS countries essential for the current system. However, the economic, cultural and human potential of BRICS countries is «excessive» from the point of view of the role which BRICS countries play in the world-system.

15 http://english.igso.ru/index.php

http://english.igso.ru/index.php

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3. We may represent BRICS countries as equivalent to teenagers who have grown up too quickly, ‘modernizing’ themselves very rapidly if we look at that process in historic perspective. This leads to a contradictory situation when impressive growth of economic and cultural potential (at least in case of Russia and China) was not accompanied by the development of democratic political traditions or, mass involvement of people in political life through self-organization. As a result, in these countries neoliberal reforms – even when they lead to the destruction of accumulated economic and cultural potential – produce high levels of social tension, but do not generate conscious social resistance.

4. In each country, though in different ways, development of a neoliberal model of capitalism creates a need to overcome structures and relations which contradict this model. In Russia, aggressive marketization was accompanied by the use of some elements of the Soviet Welfare state. Free education and healthcare, the social security system and cultural capital that had accumulated within families during the Soviet period helped Russians to adjust to the market economy and even become successful. Decline of living standards as a result of “shock therapy” and later neoliberal reforms was real but it was less painful, because of the safety nets provided by the remaining structures of the Soviet Welfare state. However, now these Welfare state institutions themselves are eroded or destroyed by the neoliberal reforms. Contradictions are becoming more painful. The Russian state faces a choice which it has to make very quickly. One route is to go forward with neoliberal policies along the lines of the mainstream tendencies within the global system in which the Russian government wants to remain, provoking ever-increasing conflicts with its own society. Trying to remain loyal to the global economic institutions and their logic, the state becomes less and less capable of sustaining existing mechanisms of social compromise, using its financial resources to address mass interests. The other route is to stop the destruction of the Welfare state and reorient government policies towards rebuilding and developing the Welfare system, but this means a conflict both with global institutions and with Russia’s own elite.

5. BRICS countries are dominant forces in their regions. They engage in different macro-regional alliances, but each time they do so to achieve local or regional goals. Their potential to go beyond that is still too weak. In the case of Russia, its ambitions based on the imperial tradition of leading the disintegrating commonwealth of independent states (CIS) and other alliances, contradict its own subordinate position in global capitalist economy and world politics.

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6. BRICS countries are the strongest among the states of semi-periphery and that makes them potentially dangerous for the balance of forces of the current global capitalism. This creates an objective precondition for an alliance between these states, trying to increase their weight in the World-system. But on the other hand, elites of these countries exist quite comfortably within this system and are not interested to risk this situation even when they have some political ambitions on the global level. Their loyalty to global economic institutions is seen as a guarantee of their international and even local status. That’s why BRICS remain a specter rather than a real alliance, a factor that can be used sometimes to blackmail their partners from the global center, but not a working mechanism of integration of societies joining forces to solve common or similar problems.

7. No matter how different the specific situations in BRICS countries, they have a common problem in the context of the global attack on the Welfare state and its institutions. But the potential for social development that is either remaining unused or has been destroyed is thus becoming transformed into society’s potential for resistance to neoliberalism. And this factor makes BRICS countries a place where objective preconditions for anti-capitalist alternatives are emerging. This block of countries may form into a force opposing neoliberal order, but only on a condition of domestic social change in each of these countries. Unfortunately this can only happen when societies overcome their own weakness and authoritarian control. Unless that it happens, the BRICS alliance doesn’t have a perspective to become a real global force capable of changing the world order.

8. The model which can be called «know how BRICS» seems to be exhausted. Up to some point local elites were able to keep both sheep and wolves satisfied. That was possible because of important resources which these countries provided to the global market gaining some advantages in this division of labour. Economic crisis limits these advantages, diminishes the flow of external money into BRICS countries and the real value of this money. This leads to the intensification of domestic neoliberal reforms which undermine institutional basis of social compromise as well as social and political mechanisms of consensus-building. Following the recommendations of global institutions such as WTO, IMF and the World Bank leads to even deeper transformation of social and economic structures. Economies are more and more getting oriented to the weakening demand of international market at the expense of domestic market which also gets weaker or doesn’t realize its potential growth. This intensifies domestic social crisis and conflicts.

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9. In case of Russia, this is expressed by a chronic social crisis that can’t be overcome without changing the existing economic structures and political system. The majority of the Russian population still base their life strategies on the assumption that basic welfare guaranties are going to be provided, but their chances in this respect are diminishing rapidly. Given current trends, even those welfare provisions and rights that are formally still available will become technically dysfunctional. This policy creates problems not only to the masses of people but also to regional elites. Trying to cut costs for itself, federal administration expands the powers of regional authorities, but doesn’t provide them with access to additional financial resources. In practice, this means more responsibility without more rights. Regional administrations face a deep crisis trying to cope with this new situation. In practice, they have to slow down the implementation of the neoliberal policies introduced by the central government because for them this is the only chance to avoid or postpone mass protests. But this increases political contradictions and conflicts within the state system and creates a real governability crisis. Ironically, at the central level this leads to even stronger insistence on the market reform as central authorities see that as the only way to overcome the «inefficiency» of local bureaucratic structures. Thus, stochastic sabotage at local level leads to new institutional struggles and the decomposition of state institutions, including the most basic ones. Russia faces a catastrophic governability crisis that adds to the economic and social crises, producing preconditions for serious political destabilization.

10. The exhaustion of the social compromise model objectively creates conditions for stronger cooperation between the BRICS countries, which at least have a chance to work together against global neoliberal institutions demanding that they soften their approach. But here we face considerable obstacles:

a) BRICS countries themselves are structurally dependent on the global economy and the existing division of labour — their neoliberal reforms are not only produced under the pressure of global capital but also result from this dependency;

b) BRICS elites are involved in global competition trying to increase their weight in the current world-system;

c) Domestic (national) elites oriented to the global market are not interested in changing neoliberal policies. On the contrary, they want to intensify it.

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11. Being unable to create a real functional alliance BRICS counties imitate alliance building to put symbolic pressure on the global centre. But their inability and unwillingness to go beyond that limits their chance to use even this political tool. This weakness is increased by the impotence of local political elites at least in some BRICS countries, lacking political actors capable to articulate and defend their own state interests against capitalist global elites.

12. These characteristics of BRICS countries and their elites lead to a situation where instead of being a force contributing globally to the improvement of the conditions of the countries of the periphery, they become the Centre’s «fifth column», a force of subglobal support for neoliberal strategies. But even here we see BRICS as a potential factor of world politics rather than a serious player. In practice, the Centre isn’t interested in encouraging an integration of a block of countries with impressive resources and a population of over three billion people. Even under neoliberal leadership such integration can produce problems. It is better to have an alliance in name only, without much substance.

13. Contradictions between society and the state that we see in the BRICS countries are basically the same as in the centre of the capitalist system, but they are deepened by the economic dependency. However, BRICS countries have a strong tradition of revolutions and resistance struggles that remains part of the collective memory of the people. They have rich histories and cultural traditions of their own. They can be seen as a subglobal support base for the Welfare State. The problem is that the actual level of resistance and struggles is very weak compared with the objective level of social discontent. Here, the problem is the lack of social subjectivity. What is needed is a new social alliance or, rather, a historic block to be built in order to promote and consolidate these struggles, making them effective in terms of practical social change. And even now we have all the conditions to use the BRICS as a space for dialogue of these emerging forces working for a new strategy of progressive social transformation both at local and global levels.

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INDIA IN THE BRICS: ITS RELEVANCE BOTH FROM A DOMESTIC PERSPECTIVE AS WELL AS THE RELEVANCE OF THE BRICS IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVESrinivas Krishnaswamy and Sunita DubeyVasudha Foundation, New Delhi/Washington DC16

I. INDIA IN THE BRICS: A BRIEF BACKGROUND AND ASSESSMENT

Starting off as a group or alliance of just four countries, namely, Russia, China, Brazil and India, BRIC as an acronym was formalized in September 2006 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly with a meeting of Foreign Ministers of these four countries.

The first meeting of the BRIC countries was held in June 2009, immediately after the G-20 summit held in London in April 2009. The key agenda and discussion in the meeting was around the ‘financial crises. While the declaration of countries released after the first meeting addressed cooperation on a wide range of issues, the key focus of the discussion was seemingly on “addressing the financial crisis”, strengthening and reforming international financial institutions with greater voice for emerging and developing economies, and on international trade and foreign direct investment flows.

What seems apparent from reading between the lines of the declaration post first formal meeting is that this grouping was born as a grouping of emerging economies, perceivably to counter balance the G-8 and importantly representing key regions of

16 http://www.vasudha-india.org/

http://www.vasudha-india.org/

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Latin America, Asia, Europe and with South Africa also formally joining the group in 2011, which covered Africa, hence changing the acronym from BRIC to BRICS.

Some political analysts, who have looked at the rationale of the group, firmly believe that the primary drivers behind this group formation were Russia and China. Russia’s interest to group with China was primarily to balance the influence of the United States of America, while for the Chinese it was geo-political and economic interests that motivated them to be part of this grouping. With increasing investment of China in Africa, this assessment of China seems logical.

However, the role of India in this grouping is a still a big question, primarily because of the following reasons:

• The partnership and cooperation between India and Russia that existed in the 1980s, 90s and even 2000s, particularly in defence supplies, space technology cooperation and nuclear cooperation is declining especially with India looking at the other markets for defence supplies and business opportunities.

• The business and political cooperation between India and China has never been very strong except that they do share a common position when it comes to climate negotiations at the UNFCC.

• India so far has not shown much business interests or investments in either Africa or Latin America, though recently they have recognized the business potential of these markets and specifically made some investments in coal mines in Africa, primarily from an energy security point of view.

• Perhaps one major reason for India to be part of the group is to use the group’s influence (if any) to get a permanent seat at the UN Security Council along with Brazil.

II. RELEVANCE OF THE BRICS IN THE CURRENT GLOBAL GEOPOLITICAL SCENARIO:

It is ironic that the BRIC concept was first formulated by the then Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill in 2001, when he argued that “over the next 10 years the weight of BRIC, and especially China in the world’s GDP will grow, and as a result world policy making forums would be reorganized in favour of BRIC countries”.

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While the original BRIC concept was primarily based on ‘economic interests’, it is very obvious that neither of these countries have a common agenda nor interests and in fact their interests are many a time divergent and in conflict with each other.

In current geopolitical dynamics, the role of the BRICS is seen as filling up the vacuum left by declining powers of the West. In an emerging multipolar world, the BRICS are definitely playing a crucial role and also shaping the global debates and structures. Further, with their efforts to create new structures such as a BRICS Bank, which is being portrayed as a “developing country alternative or substitute to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, they are definitely further weakening the hitherto stronghold of USA and some of the European countries.

The question is whether the coming together of the BRICS countries is a geopolitical move to assert their common economic and political power or it is a just an ad-hoc group, as is perceived in many quarters. As pointed out earlier, these countries have many differences in terms of governance, economic growth, and national challenges. While as a group their collective Gross Domestic Product rate in the last decade may have been high, the exponential growth rates in China far outshines the others, and this is also true for accumulated assets. Further, the growth rate of some of these countries have also dipped, while those of other emerging economies which are not part of BRICS such as Indonesia, Mexico and Korea are not only matching them, but also marching ahead.

Further, in addition to GDP, there are other dissimilarities amongst these countries. On poverty and Human Development Index, Russia (0.788) and Brazil (0.730) fall in the category of High Human Development Index, with China (0.699) and South Africa (0.629) in the Middle Human Development Index and India (0.554) on the border between Low and Medium Human Development Index.

As far as investments and business are concerned, there is very little in common between these countries. China already has huge investments and business interests in Africa and elsewhere. There are already instances of China being increasingly viewed with suspicion in Africa and Latin America because of these investments, and the manner in which businesses are run. The banners that were seen in Durban around the BRICS meeting earlier this year, which said “Don’t carve out Africa”, clearly point out the fact that this group is also seen as a “neo-imperialist group”, though clearly, amongst the four countries, it is China that has been advancing its business interests particularly in Africa and Latin America.

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While the BRICS countries are trying to share an agenda through various summits and meetings, there are no indications of sophistication and further deepening of relationships in this group. This raises questions around the BRICS stability as a sustained block that could influence future geopolitical dynamics, too.

III. INDIA’S POSITION AND ROLE WITHIN THE BRICS VERSUS OTHER INTERNATIONAL FORUMS

In terms of participation and articulation of its views and stance, India has equally participated in the various international forums, like the G-20, MEF, BASIC, BRICS, IBSA (India Brazil and South Africa) and others. India has also hosted a number of these meetings, and even the Prime Minister has attended the meetings on a regular basis.

The statements which usually come out of these meetings from the government representatives seem to indicate that India places a lot of importance on these meetings and, most particularly, the last meeting of the BRICS in Durban had a fairly large team (in relative comparative terms), and was even attended by the Indian business houses. India also has dedicated websites for IBSA and BRICS in India (http://ibsa.nic.in) and (http://www.bricsindia.in/index.html).

However, in newspaper reports and articles, there is more focus on India and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China)17 rather than IBSA and BRICS, primarily due to the fact that the focus of BASIC countries is on formulation of their collective negotiation positions in ongoing climate negotiations at the UNFCCC.

IV. THE PERCEPTION OF BRICS IN INDIA? DO INDIANS SEE IT AS A MAJOR PLAYER AND IF SO, THE ROLE FOR INDIA AND THE BRICS PER SE:

According to the media coverage of the BIRCS meetings, and also to general perception, there is not much importance given to this grouping in public and political spheres.

In fact it raises doubt around the rationale behind India being part of the BRICS particularly

17 This coalition of countries is mainly focused on UN climate negotiations and Russia is usually on the other side on climate issues.

http://ibsa.nic.in

http://ibsa.nic.in

http://www.bricsindia.in/index.html

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given the interests of Russia and China, and more particularly the investments and business interests of China in Africa.

The general sentiments by a number of people is that African nations so far have a fairly respectful view of India given its history and standing with regard to rights and democratic values, more importantly, the manner in which India has not tried to tap the immense resources and business potentials in Africa unlike China. The fear expressed by some people is that this respect could easily turn to hostility, if they get the feeling that India is supporting China in exploiting Africa. The general sentiments of local communities and groups in Africa during BRICS summit in Durban clearly indicated that many in Africa perceive BRICS as a new, emerging imperialist group.

As indicated earlier, India and China have never been very close partners despite being neighbouring countries. They do have substantial trade between them with India exporting raw materials to China and importing finished goods largely made from the same raw materials. But apart from that, on a number of issues, there are huge differences of views between them. Some examples of these include:

a) China had initially put up a number of conditions at the time of approval of the India-US civil nuclear energy deal by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Ultimately, the US forced China to support the deal in the NSG. Now, China wants a similar deal in the NSG for its all-weather friend and client state Pakistan.

b) Turning to the ASEAN, China, for the last several years, has prevented India’s entry by stringently opposing the ASEAN plus six formula that includes India (ASEAN, Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and US), while supporting the ASEAN plus three formula (ASEAN, China, US and Japan). We also see continued exclusion of India from the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Conference).

Further, the talks of the BRICS Bank and media reports from the Durban summit further exposed perceived differences between these countries especially around the location of the BRICS Bank headquarters, given that China will be putting much more money in the pool and hence wants more control over the governance and structure of the Bank. According to analysts, this is an alarming trend of differences in this grouping.

The fact that while the BRICS are trying to position themselves as “protectors of the poor and vulnerable” and the projection that the BRICS Bank would address the woes of poor countries, on one hand, while having an agenda which is seemingly similar to that of

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the other existing development and multi-lateral banks is yet another area of concern. This is further coupled with the secrecy and lack of CSO involvement in the discussions in the BRICS summit in general and more so during the run-up to the Bank’s formation. This has also started to ring the alarm bells amongst various community groups, and especially groups that have had and continue to have long standing battles with large infrastructure projects that have been funded by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, amongst others. Therefore, it seems that the BRICS Bank has a very similar agenda to that of the Bretton Woods Institutions.

Therefore, a number of analysts do believe that BRICS is only an ad-hoc grouping and have questioned India’s continued presence in this grouping.

V. CIVIL SOCIETY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND BRICS:

There is hardly any civil society or social movements tracking development around the BRICS per se, although some groups that deal with the World Trade Organization and trade related issues tend to follow trade outcomes from the BRICS meetings, and also other trade related cooperation agreements, if any. In addition to these groups, some of the international development groups such as Action-Aid International and Oxfam International do follow the development around BRICS, but, there is not always an involvement of country offices per se, though they are kept informed, and sometimes do participate in side events organized during BRICS summits.

The reasons for very limited civil society and social movement involvement on this issue from an Indian perspective are listed below:

a) Limited Importance of the role of the BRICS: As indicated in this article, there is very limited importance given to the role of the BRICS. This is primarily due to lack of understanding of the very logic of this grouping and no major political and economic outcomes from these Summits. However, this is likely to change with the BRICS Development Bank. Many groups have already started to look into the aspects, as newspaper reports that came out of the Durban Summit and previous summit seem to indicate, that the agenda of the BRICS Bank will be similar to that of other multilateral banks. This indeed has sent alarms to a number of groups who have been battling with large infrastructure projects funded by the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the Forum of NGOs against ADB has a large number of community groups from India as members.

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b) Very little is known about the BRICS: The whole BRICS meetings and agenda are not very transparent, and currently there is absolutely no involvement of civil society groups. For instance, in the pre-summit meetings and sessions prior to the actual BRICS meeting in Delhi, there were a number of events, but none of them had participation from the civil society representatives. There were sessions for business houses, Industry and Trade Associations and a dedicated session for financial reporters and editors of larger financial media houses. Even academic experts were invited to some events, but no civil society groups. The following link gives an overview of the events that were organized in Delhi around the BRICS summit in 2012.http://www.bricsindia.in/presummit.html

So, in short, there has been very little room, if any, provided for civil society participation at the BRICS meetings or its deliberations.

c) Further, there is not a lot of funding support to civil society groups to track the deliberations of the BRICS, or even BASIC Country meetings for that matter. This is also primarily due to the fact that there is not much importance accorded to this grouping, which seems fair. However, with new developments such as the BRICS bank, this could change.

http://www.bricsindia.in/presummit.html

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND EMERGING ECONOMIES:Dorothy-Grace GuerreroFocus on the Global South18

IF A MULTIPOLAR WORLD IS REALLY HAPPENING AND NEW GLOBAL POWER RELATIONS ARE EMERGING, WHAT WILL BE THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS?

In the last BRICS Summit in Durban, South Africa, the BRICS leaders decided to set up a BRICS Bank and it is expected that the plan concerning its operations will be submitted to the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg in September. There is a growing acceptance that the world is entering a multipolar phase in global governance with the “rise of the South” or the increasing powers of emerging economies China, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa (from hereon the BRICS). Many believe too that with the economic stagnation in the Eurozone and the US, BRICS countries are gaining more wealth, expertise, consumption power and the political clout to influence and re-arrange the global system to their advantage. The lingering economic crisis in the US is also seen as a signal of the beginning of the end of the US hegemony and that, among the new powers, many think that China could be the most likely challenger to US dominance19.

Will the North allow the BRICS to take the lead in global governance? Can China and the other new actors present a new and better leadership role in the various political arenas and centres of decision-making? More importantly, since China is seen as the top contender to the North among the BRICS, is it offering a better model of partnership with other developing countries or it is turning out to be a “sub-imperialist”20 power

18 http://focusweb.org/

19 Ikenberry, G. John, “The Rise of China and the Future of the West: Can the Liberal System Survive?”, 87 Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008.

20 Patrick Bond defined sub-imperialism as deputy-sheriff duty for new powers such as the BRICS countries, while controlling their own angry populaces as well as their hinterlands. The eco-destructive, consumerist-centric, over-financialised, climate-frying maldevelopment model throughout the BRICS works very well for corporate profits, but the model is generating

http://focusweb.org/

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that will continue the same or more intense practices of exploitation and extraction of natural resources from poorer countries to further enrich itself? Social movements and activist academics are increasingly wary that the economic model it is advancing is the same unsustainable and unjust paradigm that facilitates for accumulation of wealth by a few while resulting to dispossession and pauperization of the already marginalized and powerless.

CHINA’S ROLE IN PROMOTING A MULTIPOLAR ORDER AND BRICSJiang Zemin officially incorporated the concept of multipolar world (duoji shijie) into Chinese foreign policy at the 14th Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1992 to support China’s stance that a fair, just and peaceful world is only possible through multipolarity. China’s foreign policy since Jiang’s leadership acknowledges that a single and unchecked superpower can be very dangerous as exemplified by the US invasion of Iraq without a UN sanction and the US/NATO actions in Kosovo.

The China – Russia Constructive Partnership Agreement of 1994 that was later renamed China – Russia Strategic Agreement in 1996 not only signalled the strengthening of the Chinese and Russian relationship, but also their preference to multipolarity as against the unipolar world order that emerged after the collapse of the bipolar world order. The China - Russia 1997 Joint Statement strongly emphasize that a fair and just society can only be possible in a multipolar world and not in a unipolar one21. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is another manifestation of interest to advance multipolarity.

BRICS’ precursor was the Russia-India-China group formally initiated by Russia in 2002 to serve as its platform after its former power was weakened by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the challenges it faced with its borders. The history of alliances, tensions, rivalry and differences between these three countries are deep but it seems that these challenges are being overcome by the will to strengthen BRICS.

crises for 99% of the people and for the planet. See also Bond’s “Bankrupt Africa: Imperialism, Subimperialism and the Politics of Finance”, Historical Materialism, Volume 12:4, Leiden, 2004, pp.145-172.

21 Sino-Russian Joint Statement” of November 10, 1997, the “Joint Statement on Sino- Russian Relations at the Turn of the Century” the “Joint Press Communique on Sino-Russian Summit Re-sults” of November 10, 1998, and the “Sino-Russian Treaty on Good-Neighborliness, Friendship, and Cooperation” in 2001

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China worked for the inclusion of South Africa in December 2010. South Africa’s involvement worked well in expanding the geographic representation of the group and further strengthened the multipolar and non-Western character of BRICS. China is now the strongest economic power in BRICS and the most influential in its economic and financial agenda.

The BRICS Bank set up last March, will mobilise resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects within BRICS and other developing countries. It will supplement the existing efforts of multilateral and regional financial institutions for global growth and development with an initial capital of $50 billion, which came from each BRICS member’s contribution of $10 billion.

CHINA’S RISE AS GLOBAL POWER: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO THE REST OF THE SOUTHVarious forecasts predict that China will soon surpass the US as the top global economic power22. Whether this will happen as early as 201623 as the IMF predicted using purchasing power parity as basis of analysis or by 202024 or by 203025 according to the World Bank, the “guesstimates” agree that it will be earlier than previous assessments.

China’s role in the global political economy entered a new stage in 2005 when it started to become a new exporter of capital. China is currently the largest holder of foreign currency reserves on the planet, 54% of its USD 3.2 trillion in foreign reserves are in US dollars26.

22 Maddison, Angus, 2006, “Asia in the world economy, 1500 2030”, Asian Pacific Economic Literature, 20(2): 1 37.

23 Arends, Brett, “IMF bombshell: Age of America nears end, Commentary: China’s economy will surpass the US in 2016”, Marketwatch, The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2012, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/imf-bombshell-age-of-america-about-to-end-2011-04-25?link=MW_home_latest_news

24 Shirley, Andrew (ed), The Wealth Report 2012: A Global Perspective on Prime Property and Wealth, Knight Frank Research, 2012 http://www.thewealthreport.net/

25 BBC News Business, “China to overtake US and dominate business by 2030”, March 24, 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12848449

26 Orlik, Tom and Davis, Bob, “Beijing Diversifies Away from the Dollar”, The Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2012

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/imf-bombshell-age-of-america-about-to-end-2011-04-25?link=MW_home_latest_news



http://www.thewealthreport.net/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12848449

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Since the 2008 global financial crisis, China has accounted for more than 35 per cent of all global economic growth27. For the first time since 2003 China surpassed the US as the world’s largest recipient of global foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first half of 2012. The data from UNCTAD show that US FDI inflows reached $57.4 billion in the first half of the year, down from $94.4 billion in 2011 while China attracted $59.1 billion in foreign investment in the first six months, down from $60.9 billion28. Although short-lived, as the US regained dominance by the end of 2012, this indicates that investors continue to be attracted by its huge market.

China’s economic priority is ensuring access for its goods, securing its source of energy, expanding outward investments, and consolidating its position as a regional and global hub of advanced production networks. For countries in the South, the more important question about China’s challenge to the US and other old powers is whether such rivalry is making other developing countries more prosperous and stable or if it is leading to a more tragic “race to the bottom” among the weak.

China’s aggressive FTAs are underpinned by two objectives. The first is to secure long-term energy supplies and establish sources of other natural resources that it needs for its manufacturing exports. The second objective is to expand its market to various regions to enable it to continue its growth. Currently, China has 14 FTA partners comprising 31 economies and regions including the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, EU, Africa and Oceania29. Since 2002, China has signed FTA Agreements with the ASEAN, Chile, Pakistan, New Zealand, Singapore, Peru, Costa Rica as well as signed Economic Partnership Agreements with Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. It is negotiating FTAs with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Australia, Iceland, Norway, Southern African Customs Union, Japan and South Korea (China-Japan-SK FTA) and Switzerland. It is in the stage of finishing FTA Feasibility Studies with India and South Korea.

Until 1993, China was a net exporter of oil. The need to find a secure supply of energy prompted it to negotiate oil and gas deals with various countries in the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Russia and Eurasia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Americas.

27 Beams, Nick, “China Slowdown Deepens Global Crisis”, World Socialist Website, August 16, 2012, http://wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/pers-a16.shtml

28 Hannon, Paul and Reddy, Sudeep, “China Edges Out US as Top Foreign Investment Draw Amid World Decline”, The Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2012.

29 China FTA Network, http://fta.mofcom.gov.cn/topic/engcc.shtml , also www.bilaterals.org

http://wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/pers-a16.shtml

http://fta.mofcom.gov.cn/topic/engcc.shtml

http://www.bilaterals.org

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China’s export credit and guarantee agencies; particularly China EximBank and Sinosure are now playing a crucial role in fostering the rapid expansion of Chinese trade and overseas investments. The China EximBank, a state bank solely owned by the Chinese government and the country’s official credit agency, is the world’s largest export credit agency. In total, China has extended $12.5 billion more in loans to sub-Saharan Africa in the past decade than the World Bank, $67.2 billion was also lent to the world’s poorest region between 2001 and 2010 compared with the World Bank’s $54.7 billion30. The China Development Bank, the world’s largest development institution in terms of assets, is putting more resources behind the overseas expansion of Chinese enterprises, particularly in natural resource projects.

Contrary to impressions, it is not true that Chinese investment or loans have no strings attached to them. A study on Chinese banks financing in Latin America shows that Chinese loans have more stringent demands than World Bank loans. In 2010, China Development Bank lent $20 billion to Venezuela in exchange of Venezuela’s payment through oil shipments to China. China sent 30 consultants, led by a former vice-governor of CDB, to Venezuela for 18 days with a mission to check how Venezuela will deliver the oil and to make proposals on how to reform its economy to ensure that it will get its money back31. In Africa, many riots were spurred by the fact that Chinese workers were brought in by Chinese investors instead of hiring local labour. Cheap Chinese products are also flooding local markets.

Chinese investments and economic partnership with countries in Latin America is getting stronger. By the end of 2012, trade between China and Latin America reached $250 billion and, since 2005, China has provided countries there with loan commitments of more than $86bn32. Apart from oil agreements as in the case with Venezuela, borrowers must also contract Chinese firms and buy Chinese equipment in exchange for the loans.

Chinese banks actually already have very good Environmental Standards, which is comparable to western counterparts. However, considering the urgent need to address

30 Cohen, Mike “China Exim Lend More to Sub-Saharan Africa than the World Bank – Fitch says”, Bloomberg, December 28, 2011 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-28/china-exim-lo-ans-to-sub-sahara-africa-exceed-world-bank-funds-fitch-says.html

31 Rabinovitch, Simon, “A New Way of Lending”, Financial Times, September 23, 2012.

32 Gallagher, Kevin, “Latin America playing a risky game by welcoming in the Chinese dragon”, The Guardian, May 30, 2013

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-28/china-exim-loans-to-sub-sahara-africa-exceed-world-bank-funds-fitch-says.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-28/china-exim-loans-to-sub-sahara-africa-exceed-world-bank-funds-fitch-says.html

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climate change and many environmental concerns, those standards must actually be implemented and strengthened.

A MULTIPOLAR WORLD?

Despite the flurry of figures, it is misleading to think that China’s rise to the top means that it will soon rule the world the way the US does. The US is still the world’s largest economy and its military is still the most powerful. However, it is finding it increasingly difficult to assert a hegemonic role the way it used to due its own crisis, its burgeoning national debt, the impacts of the Iraq and Afghan invasions and ongoing wars and the declining popularity of President Obama.

The rise of new powers like BRICS does not necessarily mean that they are seeking to assume the former hegemonic role of the US. It is more likely that a multipolar world means that a new mix of leading countries will define the global political economy together with the US. At this point too, the emerging economies are still playing a supporting role to the US and the West. The old powers are still maintaining the lead in many political arenas and spaces of decision-making like the UN, the World Bank and the International Monetary Bank (despite latest attempt to put a non-American in the WB in 2012), and in trade and investments33.

China is also grappling with huge internal problems. Chinese leaders are constantly preoccupied with the task of finding the best formula to address the need for stability and reform as the continued success of China’s economic agenda and more importantly the survival of the Party and the current character of the state are at stake. It is also misleading to focus on China’s and India’s soaring GDP considering the huge number of people in both countries that are poor. Another reality is the huge gaps between the old and new powers’ technological know-how, military capability and political influence in international affairs34.

China packed the 200 years of industrial revolution and modernization efforts of the now advanced economies into three decades of fast-paced experimentation using

33 Wade, Robert, “The United States and the World, The Art of Power Maintenance: How Western States Keep the Lead in Global Organizations’”, Challenge, Vol.56. No. 1, January/February 2013, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., pp.5-39

34 Ju, Zhongwen, “Moving toward multipolar world”, China Daily, Dec.12, 2010, http://www.chi-nadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-08/12/content_11141897.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-08/12/content_11141897.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-08/12/content_11141897.htm

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an unusual mix of communist politics, developmental experiences of other East Asian countries and capitalist economics. The grow-at-all-cost development paradigm that enabled it to make the giant economic leap has now reached its limits as shown by its increasingly degraded environment, growing inequality and economic imbalance.

Critics of Asia’s development paradigm have long argued that free trade and neoliberalism is increasing inequality and poverty in the region and especially in China and India despite the two countries’ phenomenal growth. China and India ranked 120th and 170th in global human security index. China’s market socialism in its modern form is a predatory, dysfunctional and grossly inefficient system that is enormously wasteful and unsustainable35. China’s model merely reflects 21st century capitalism, which is characterized by high-speed accumulation by the few, dispossession of the majority’s access to resources and voice in the management of resources. The majority of the current analysis about China’s role in the changing global political economy fails to locate China in the context of neo-liberal globalization.

In the context of the ongoing debate about China’s growing environmental footprint in other developing countries, two aspects are seldom discussed: the limits to growth and a planetary transition to low carbon consumption. China’s rise to the top was achieved through importation of natural resources and their re-exportation in the form of value-added inputs of final products for consumption in other countries, mostly in the west. In effect, the emergence of China as the factory of the world is upholding the unsustainable consumption and production patterns in the developed world. There is also the reality of unbridled power held by transnational corporations and Chinese TNCs are joining the game.

It is still a challenge for small, independent civil society organisations in China to understand issues beyond their borders. Organizing and collective actions are mostly done locally and protests against abuses, the quality of environment and working conditions are spontaneous and not sustained. However, there are many individuals who are gaining a worldview that are more critical against Chinese realities. It is very important to reach out and develop partnerships for movements worldwide to find their progressive and alternative counterparts inside China.

35 J. Lee, Will China Fail? The Limits and Contradictions of Market Socialism, Center for Indepen-dent Studies, 2007

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SOUTH AFRICA AND THE BRICSDavid FigHonorary Research Associate at the Environmental Evaluation Unit in the University of Cape Town, and a Fellow of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam.

WHAT IS THE RELEVANCE OF BRICS IN THE CURRENT GLOBAL GEOPOLITICAL SCENARIO?As a relative newcomer to the BRICS formation, South Africa has gained a seat at the top table of the emerging countries.36 BRICS and its predecessor BRIC was a notion arising from work undertaken by the team around Jim O’Neill at Goldman Sachs.37 It was not originally foreseen as a multilateral organisation, but the original BRIC members found it convenient to create an annual summit, and, from this informal sharing of strategic interests has grown a more formal structure with ideas for institutionalizing itself, creating development banks, and so on. This institutionalization is a growing trend.

BUT WHAT WILL BRICS DO? WILL IT LEAVE ANY KIND OF TRACE ON THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE PLANET?For one thing it will potentially assist to forge regular summitry and alliance building across its membership. This might help in the long run to even out some rivalries, disputes and opposing interests among members, or to back members in their disputes with other parties. Since the 1960s, China’s ideological difficulties with the Soviet Union (now Russia) and with India (border wars) have meant that the new alliances within the BRICS have to overcome decades of traditional hostility. South Africa has a trade dispute with Brazil, accusing it of dumping poultry.38 In relation to direct foreign investment, the BRICS members compete with one another to gain access to raw materials and other business opportunities.

36 South Africa was accepted as a member in 2010 (see Smith, 2011).

37 O’Neill, 2001

38 WTO, 2012.

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While strictly speaking the BRICS cannot speak for the ‘South’, it can provide a more coherent voice for the larger of the so-called emerging economies. How this voice will be expressed remains to unfold, since there is no designated office, spokesperson, or hierarchy. The tendency to date has not been to make pronouncements as a grouping, other than to publicise the outcomes of summit decision-making. BRICS has no consultative status in other multilateral forums, so it cannot yet represent itself formally within, say, UN structures.

Nevertheless, its summitry will enable it to begin to develop and defend common positions, and to act as a more coherent lobby in its members’ interests. Some of the arenas in which it can be expected to operate include the reshaping of multilateral institutions to ensure increased control and greater representation by BRICS members. South Africa’s membership has also raised questions more sharply of the relationship between the BRICS and other African countries,39 consolidating the growing neo-imperial hold of each of the BRICS countries in the continent. China, Brazil and South Africa have already begun to feel the heat of local resistance to their direct presence in a number of African countries, especially in mining and retail services.40

Will the BRICS be in a position to challenge the geopolitical power of the traditional industrial powers, particularly the US, the EU main players and Japan? Since the global power configurations have been altering irrespective of BRICS’ existence, the answer to this question has yet to unfold fully. China’s acquisition of a substantial part of the US debt may deter it from wanting to undermine that country’s economy, but it may also seek BRICS support to create a reserve currency from the renminbi.

Without a consolidated strategic approach, the BRICS’ organizational impact on geopolitics will be slight.

HOW DOES YOUR COUNTRY ARTICULATE THE BRICS WITH OTHER EXISTING SPACES IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM?In a number of other multilateral forums, South Africa interacts with other BRICS

39 Dube, 2013.

40 In January 2012, Brazilian mining corporation Vale won the Public Eye award for being the corporation with the most “contempt for the environment and human rights” in the world (Chau-dhuri, 2012). The critical literature on South Africa in Africa is vast but perhaps best typified by Daniel et al., 2007.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/human-rights

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members. In global summitry, all BRICS members are included in the G20. At the UN, South Africa, Brazil and India are all seeking a greater and more permanent role in the membership of the Security Council. BRICS minus Russia have created a joint formation, BASIC, to engage with the UN climate change negotiations. And there are many other institutions in which the BRICS interact.

However one of the key questions as a result of South Africa’s entry into the BRICS is what might happen with IBSA. This is the formation of a trilateral institution between Brazil, India and South Africa, created prior to the BRIC, with the idea of these countries playing some leadership role in relation to the South in world affairs. The common factor is that each of them is a constitutional democracy, with Brazil recuperating its democratic status in the 1980s and South Africa doing away with white minority rule in 1994.

IBSA styles itself as a ‘dialogue forum’, with annual summits and declarations, but without a central institution. IBSA’s business is conducted within the scope of the members’ existing government institutions. Trilateral committees based on particular functions or projects abound. At each summit, there is a parallel meeting of business leaders from the three countries. IBSA members donate funds to a project on development assistance in less-developed countries (Haiti, Palestine, Guinea Bissau) but the work is conducted by the UNDP. 41

While IBSA foresees the strengthening of trilateral co-operation on a number of practical levels, the alliance between the three principals has been offset by a number of issues. Some of these include trade and investment rivalries. In practice, however, instead of trilateral solidarity winning out, Brazil and India have formed an alliance with Germany and Japan to push for better representation in the UN Security Council. In the case of joint promotion of agrofuels (especially in Mozambique), Brazil has formed an alliance with the EU and the US. In short, IBSA membership has not generated common strategic approaches to key geopolitical issues, nor has it consolidated its work around potential common interests, for example the promotion of democracy and human rights in the South.

As the BRICS consolidates and institutionalizes itself, will the IBSA Dialogue Forum become increasingly sidelined and begin to lose its distinctive raison d’être?

41 Fig, 2012.

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WHAT DOES THE BRICS REPRESENT FOR YOUR COUNTRY? WHAT ROLE SHOULD YOUR COUNTRY PLAY AT THE BRICS? WHICH AGENDAS, INITIATIVES AND PROPOSALS YOUR COUNTRY SHOULD PROMOTE AT THE BRICS?For South Africa, BRICS represents promotion beyond merit. On all criteria determining an emerging economy’s place in BRICS (population, area, trade, GDP) South Africa scores even below an intermediate group of more eligible countries that include Mexico, Indonesia, S Korea and Turkey (the MIKT). Jim O’Neill was initially very surprised that South Africa had been invited by China to expand the BRIC.42

So what determined South Africa’s eligibility? One school of thought tries to say that the BRIC was trying to be inclusive of an African member, and that South Africa qualified as being the principal economy on the continent. Newly democratic South Africa has long sought a leadership role on the continent (e.g., the recent struggle for the presidency of the African Union) and yet this has aroused resentment on the part of some other African countries. They see South Africa attempting, alongside the other BRICS, to develop more investment, trade and political leverage on the continent. In this sense, South Africa’s membership of the BRICS displays some congruency with the role of the rest of the grouping.

Another debate on the role of South Africa in the BRICS is to facilitate the access of the other members to Africa, the so-called ‘gateway’ argument. This assumes that South Africa, due to geographical and cultural proximity, has greater reach in Africa than the other BRICS. Of course, the truth is that South Africa is a relatively new player on the continent, as all sorts of embargos and boycotts operated during apartheid. The other members of the BRICS have their own methods of access to the rest of Africa, due to direct diplomacy and investment, and do not really seem to need South Africa as an intermediary. Brazil plays on its role as a lusophone state in order to get closer to Mozambique, Angola and other former Portuguese colonies. India and China have developed strong bilateral links with many African countries, and host trade and investment conferences for the region on a regular basis.

Despite all this, China is investing heavily in the South African banking sector. In particular, one of its most important banks (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) has purchased 20% of the Standard Bank of South Africa Ltd, which has a footprint in

42 Naidoo, 2012.

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17 other African countries. Standard also owned a chain of banks in Argentina of which ICBC in 2012 purchased an 80% stake. The ICBC has masterminded a US$1 billion loan to Standard Bank, and is drawing the bank into a Chinese bid to build the next six nuclear reactors in South Africa’s fleet.43

So, should South Africa play a gateway role for the other members of BRICS where it can? Even where this might be possible, a comprador role for South Africa might end up alienating most of the other African countries. In any case, South Africa – even from a less favourable position – is actually mostly in competition with the other BRICS for extending its influence, markets and investments to the rest of Africa.

South Africa itself is in thrall to Chinese foreign policy. As a donor to the ruling ANC coffers, China has, for example, been able to influence Pretoria to keep the Dalai Lama out of the country, even when specifically invited to the private 80th birthday celebrations of former Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu.

It is therefore fairly unlikely that South Africa (along with India and Brazil) could act as a champion of democracy and human rights within the BRICS. This arena is not going to be part of the BRICS agenda because it is unlikely that South Africa will stand up to China on such questions.

A more progressive government would choose to universalise the question of human rights, putting pressure on China and Russia to modify their behaviour. A more progressive position from South Africa would stress questions of African unity, advocate stricter corporate accountability, and oppose the power and behaviour of greedy oligarchies on the continent, whilst building a stronger democratic culture. The policies of the current government are very distant from such an agenda.

WHAT IS THE PROFILE AND ROLE OF YOUR COUNTRY’S SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS REGARDING BRICS?Until the BRICS Durban summit of March 2013, social movements and organisations had little knowledge or experience of the BRICS. The summit drew the attention of local organisations to the reality of the BRICS formation.

43 Reuters, 2010.

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State-orientated think tanks and associations were attracted to participation in the BRICS Academic Forum, whilst the business leadership of the BRICS attended the BRICS Business Forum and established a BRICS Business Council. These forums aimed at giving legitimacy to the BRICS project.44

More critical of the project was the BRICS from Below, a kind of counter-summit, attended by over 200 representatives of civil society organisations, mostly from South Africa, at Diakonia, a church-sponsored venue in Durban, which ran parallel to the formal summit. This was put together by a number of Durban-based organisations. The counter-summit critiqued neo-liberal economic policies of the BRICS and their exploitative extractive activities in Africa.45

In the run up to the summit there had also been a series of regional meetings for civil society organized under the auspices of the Economic Justice Movement of the councils of churches in the Southern African region.46

Much more solid and durable work will need to be done to alert South African and the broader African civil society formations in order for them to develop a coherent understanding of the BRICS and an appropriate critical stance.

HOW HAVE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS BEEN PARTICIPATING IN YOUR COUNTRY REGARDING THE BRICS? ARE THERE ANY FORMAL AND/OR INFORMAL SPACES FOR PARTICIPATION? IF SO, PLEASE DESCRIBE.The spaces for participation in the formal and associated meetings of the BRICS are limited, although some South African government officials have expressed the hope that space may be created for civil society participation. Meanwhile, participation is restricted to the Forums, which promote an uncritical attitude to the organisation, endorsing its plans for a Development Bank, and passing anodyne resolutions in support of the governments.

44 Fifth BRICS Academic Forum, 2013a and 2013b; Fifth BRICS Summit, 2013.

45 See programme at http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?11,65,3,2894.

46 Economic Justice Network of FOCCISA, 2013.

http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?11,65,3,2894.

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One strategy would be for progressive civil society organisations to set up their own BRICS forum to act as a more critical body with respect to the formal summitry. It could play the role of a counter-summit, as was tried at the Durban meeting. To be effective, it would have to have strong delegations from each member-country as well as non-members (such as some representation from affected African countries).

While the Business Forum would not be easily infiltrated, civil society participants could set up a counter-forum to expose bad behaviour of BRICS-based corporations. Affiliation to the Global Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity could be an option.

The Academic Forum is a structure that could be targeted by more critical scholars and whose agenda could come to reflect a more engaged position.

In China and Russia, where opportunities for critical civil society participation are limited, one would have to draw on participants from their respective diasporas.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN CHALLENGES REGARDING PARTICIPATION IN YOUR COUNTRY?While, occasionally, the state has sought to make life more difficult or bureaucratic for civil society, in general the robust and diverse nature of the civil society sector is a notable feature of the country’s democracy. Often characterised by weak and non-strategized responses to key issues, South African civil society has also produced a number of success stories, and can draw on its longstanding anti-apartheid stance, which underpinned its experience and track record. The major contemporary challenge would be to impart the importance of activism around the BRICS formation, in a context in which bread-and-butter issues of poverty and development are a key focus and perceived with more urgency. However as civil society has matured, it has more easily been able to make connections with global economic and environmental justice issues. Globalisation – the worldwide spread of neo-liberal capitalism – has underscored the need for a robust response, and South African civil society has been able to rise to this challenge.

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REFERENCES

Chaudhuri, Saabira. 2012. ‘Public Eye Award Singles Out Mining Company Vale’, The Guardian (London), 27 January.

Daniel, John, Jessica Lutchman and Alex Comninos. 2007. ‘South Africa in Africa: Trends and Forecasts in a Changing Political Economy’, pp. 508-532 in Buhlungu, Sakhela, John Daniel, Roger Southall and Jessica Lutchman (eds), State of the Nation: South Africa 2007. Cape Town: HSRC Press.

Dube, Memory. 2013. BRICS Summit 2013: Strategies for South African’s Engagement. Policy Briefing 62, Economic Diplomacy Programme. Johannesburg: South African Institute for International Affairs.

Economic Justice Network of the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa. 2013. BRICS Civil Society Strategy Meeting on Civil Society Perspectives and Response: Report on Proceedings, Durban, 23-4 March. Cape Town: EJN of FOCCISA.

Fifth BRICS Academic Forum. 2013a. Programme: BRICS and Africa – Partnership for Development, Integration and Industrialisation. Pretoria: Department of HigherEducation (www.inafran.ru/sites/defaults/files/news_file/brics_af_-_draft_programme_-_version_6_russia_6_march_2013.pdf downloaded 14 July 2013).

Fifth BRICS Academic Forum. 2013b. Recommendations. Durban, 11-12 March (www.safpi.org/news/article/2013/brics-academic-forum-recommendations downloaded 14 July 2013).

Fifth BRICS Summit. 2013. Joint Statement of the BRICS Business Forum 2013, Durban, 26 March (www.brics5.co.za/joint-statement-of-the-brics-business-forum-2013 downloaded 14 July 2013).

Fig, David. 2012. ‘Scientific, Agricultural and Environmental Collaboration in the IBSA Dialogue Forum, 2003-2010’, pp. 291-311 in Sujata Patel and Tina Uys (eds), Contemporary India and South Africa: Legacies, Identities and Dilemmas. New Delhi: Routledge.

Naidoo, Sharda. 2012. ‘South Africa’s Presence “Drags down BRICS”’, Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg), 23 March (www.mg.co.za/article/2012-03-23-sa-presence-drags-down-brics, downloaded 14 July 2013).

http://www.inafran.ru/sites/defaults/files/news_file/brics_af_-_draft_programme_-_version_6_russia_6_march_2013.pdf downloaded 14 July 2013

http://www.inafran.ru/sites/defaults/files/news_file/brics_af_-_draft_programme_-_version_6_russia_6_march_2013.pdf downloaded 14 July 2013

http://www.safpi.org/news/article/2013/brics-academic-forum-recommendations

http://www.safpi.org/news/article/2013/brics-academic-forum-recommendations

http://www.brics5.co.za/joint-statement-of-the-brics-business-forum-2013

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2012-03-23-sa-presence-drags-down-brics

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2012-03-23-sa-presence-drags-down-brics

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O’Neill, Jim. 2001. Building Better Global Economic BRICs. Global Economics Paper No. 66, 30 November. London: Goldman Sachs & Co.

Reuters. 2010. ‘Standard Bank, Chinese to Go Nuclear’, Fin24, 27 August (www.fin24.co.za/Companies/Standard-Bank-Chinese-to-go-nuclear downloaded 14 July 2013).

Smith, Jack A. 2011. ‘BRIC becomes BRICS: Changes on the geopolitical chessboard.’ Foreign Policy Journal, 21 January (www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/1/21/bric-becomes-brics-changes-in-the-geopolitical-chessboard/2/, downloaded 14 July 2013).

World Trade Organisation (WTO). 2012. South Africa – Anti-Dumping Duties on Frozen Meat of Fowls from Brazil: Request for Consultations by Brazil. Document G/ADP/D92/1; G/L/990; WT/DS439/1, 25 June. Geneva: WTO.

http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/topics/brics/brics-reports-pdfs/build-better-brics.pdf

http://www.fin24.co.za/Companies/Standard-Bank-Chinese-to-go-nuclear

http://www.fin24.co.za/Companies/Standard-Bank-Chinese-to-go-nuclear

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/1/21/bric-becomes-brics-changes-in-the-geopolitical-chessboard/2/

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/1/21/bric-becomes-brics-changes-in-the-geopolitical-chessboard/2/

https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/FE_Search/FE_S_S006.aspx?Query=( @Symbol= (wt/ds439/1 ))&Language=ENGLISH&Context=FomerScriptedSearch&languageUIChanged=true

https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/FE_Search/FE_S_S006.aspx?Query=( @Symbol= (wt/ds439/1 ))&Language=ENGLISH&Context=FomerScriptedSearch&languageUIChanged=true

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FINAL CONSIDERATIONSThe texts published here, written by partners in the countries

that make up the BRICS, sought to identify existing perceptions

of the role of the block in geopolitics and in global governance,

how their governments act within the dynamics of the BRICS,

and the challenges to be confronted by civil society in the

struggle over the future course of this group of nations.

The contributions of the partners reveal that, while there are specificities in the analysis related to the trajectory of each country, there is much in common with regard to the perceptions of the BRICS. The members of the block have unique histories of insertion in the international system, of alliances within the block and in their regions, of the dynamics of their economies and geopolitical interests. However, there are also many shared points.

A first important observation of the contributions is on the difficulty the BRICS are having to establish a strategic project due to the broad heterogeneity and asymmetries existing between the members. Although some contributions indicate convergence in terms of agendas and common interests, almost all recognize that the economic and political differences are a barrier to the establishment of a project with greater strength and coherence. One area of greater convergence is without doubt that of common actions to confront the global crisis and of the block’s attempt to become an influential actor in reforming the multilateral financial institutions and of the successful expansion of the G7/G8 to become the G20. One of the texts from Brazil argues that the collation began to be managed well before it was formally announced, having had some antecedents such as the formation of the trade G20 in the ministerial meeting of the WTO in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003. The texts provide a common assessment that the strong actions on this front were possible due to the vacuum left by the declining traditional powers. In other words, with some nuances between the approaches, the clearest common point among the partners’ texts is the perception that it is the crisis of hegemony in the international system that makes the articulation of economic and political interests and those of dealing with the global crisis possible, but not strategic, between the BRICS members. All also recognize that the creation of the bank of the BRICS is the

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most substantial initiative to date and that it points to concrete actions in the sense of fighting for an influential place for the block in the global order.

The texts identify the interest of the BRICS in changing the correlation of forces in global governance, and at the same time point to the role of the block in structural maintenance of the current global capitalist system. The contribution referring to China discusses the topic, indicating that neither China nor the block as a whole intend to assume the hegemonic role of the USA; it is most probable that the multipolar world being established will have its governance guided by a combination of new actors together with the USA, whose economy, in spite of serious problems, continues to be the largest on the planet and whose military arsenal is still the most powerful.

The discussion on the ‘sub-imperialist’ character of the BRICS, especially China, or ‘neo-imperialist,’ as indicated by the text from India referring to the role of the block in Africa, is present in various contributions, in the sense of the complementary role with regard to the traditional powers that some of the countries of the block play, instead of a differentiated agenda in relation to the powers of the North. As pointed out with regard to China, “For the countries of the South, the most important question with regard to the challenge that China represents for the USA and other traditional powers is whether this rivalry is making the other developing countries more prosperous and stable or whether it is leading to a more tragic ‘race to the bottom’ among the weaker ones.” The contribution from Russia emphasizes the semi-peripheral and structurally dependent nature that characterizes the place of the BRICS countries in the global capitalist system’s international division of labour, where each member of the block is a provider of resources that determine its structural place in the system. Together with this, the text from South Africa points out important issues on the relationship between the entry of the country in the block and the role played by the BRICS in Africa: “South Africa’s membership has also raised questions more sharply of the relationship between the BRICS and other African countries, consolidating the growing neo-imperial hold of each of the BRICS countries in the continent. China, Brazil and South Africa have already begun to feel the heat of local resistance to their direct presence in a number of African countries, especially in mining and retail services.”

Some of the texts discuss the relationship between the BRICS and the IBSA. The contribution from South Africa emphasizes the fear that consolidation of the BRICS results in a weakening of the reason for the existence of the IBSA, which, since it deals with a block whose common factor is that it is formed by three democracies, could have consolidated its actions in promotion of democracy and human rights in the South. On the other hand, one of the texts from Brazil argues that the IBSA would

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be the ‘group of the lower floor’ that would subsequently move to the ‘upper floor’ with Russia and China (members of the UN Security Council) and that would leverage the capacity for collective influence on economic-financial agendas of greater impact on the international system.

Another discussion present in the texts is on adoption or differentiation in relation to the neoliberal political model. The contribution from Russia argues that the countries of the block remain within the neoliberal framework, although it recognizes that they are not orthodox and that their economic and social policies combine approaches to the free market with elements of social redistribution and state intervention. One of the texts from Brazil emphasizes the centrality adopted by members of the block with regard to the role of the state in contrast to the neoliberal prescription. On the other hand, in the case of China, the establishment of free trade accords, guided by the privatization policy model of the 1990s, is adopted by the country in its search for sources of energy and other natural resources to be converted into manufactured products, to expand its exports and maintain a development model that seeks to support the high rates of economic growth even if they continue to deepen inequality and poverty.

The differences between the countries that make up the block are discussed in the texts based on different approaches. Some point out the difficulties of creating cohesion due to regional issues and pending matters between the members, such as between India and China, or the role played by each member within its own region, as in the case of South Africa. Others emphasize the enormous differences in political models, where the members of the block range from expanding democracies to authoritarian regimes, resulting in a serious obstacle to consolidation of the block. The economic differences are also recorded in the texts, both with regard to the immense economic influence of China on the other countries, and in relation to the different visions and interests on the creation of the bank of the BRICS.

The path to Fortaleza, where the next Summit of Presidents will be held in 2014, indicates that the debate on the creation of the bank of the BRICS will be one of the main agenda points. As indicated by the text from India, “The Brics, at the same time that they try to position themselves as ‘protectors of the poor and vulnerable’ and project the Bank of the Brics as an institution to deal with the problems of poor countries, has an agenda that appears similar to all the other existing multilateral development banks. This is aggravated by the secrecy and lack of involvement of civil society organizations (SCO) in the discussions of the Brics summit meetings in general and especially on the eve of formation of the bank. This also raises the alarm for several community groups,

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especially those that maintained and continue to maintain a longstanding battle against large infrastructure projects funded by the Asian Development Bank and by the World Bank, among others. In this way, it appears that the agenda of the Bank of the Brics is very similar to that of the Bretton Woods institutions.”

Perhaps a passage from the contribution from Russia indicates that there is an underlying theme in the analyses published here, which were written before the outbreak of demonstrations on the streets of Brazil: “It is not important how different the specific situations of the Brics countries are, they have a common problem in the context of the global attack on the welfare state and its institutions. But the potential for social development, which either remains unused or was destroyed, is thus transformed into the potential of society to resist neoliberalism. And this factor makes the Brics countries a place where the objective pre-conditions for anti-capitalist alternatives are emerging. This group of countries can transform into a force of opposition to the neoliberal order, but only under the conditions of social change internal to each of them. Unfortunately, this only happens when societies overcome their own weakness and their own authoritarian control. Unless this occurs, the alliance of the Brics is not likely to become a global force capable of changing the global order.”

The texts indicate the immense lack of debate on the BRICS and the need to expand social participation within the countries that make up the block. The diagnoses and challenges pointed out in the partners’ reflections are a fundamental contribution in this sense and for the construction of a process that will culminate in the civil society activities during the BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, in 2014. We hope that this publication contributes so that, in contrast to the governments of the member countries, the social organizations and movements of the BRICS advance on an increasingly consistent course towards a strategic vision of the future that we want for our societies.

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ANNEXESFIGURE 1

BRICS: AVERAGE RATES OF GROWTH OF GDP, 1980-2015 (PERCENTAGE)

1980-1990

1990-2000

2001-2005

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2015*

BRAZIL2,8 2,9 2,8 3,7 5,7 5,1 -0,2 7,5 4,1

RUSSIA - -4,7 6,2 7,4 8,1 5,6 -7,9 3,7 5,0

INDIA 5,8 6,0 6,9 9,8 9,3 7,3 6,5 9,7 8,1

CHINA 10,3 10,4 9,6 11,6 13,0 9,0 8,7 10,3 9,5

SOUTH AFRICA

1,6 2,1 4,0 5,4 5,1 3,1 -1,8 2,8 2,8

DEVELOPED COUNTRIES 3,1 2,8 1,9 2,8 2,5 0,8 -3,2 3,0 2,3

Source: UNCTAD (2010) for the period 1980-2008 and IMF (2011) for 2009-2015 data. See http://unctadatat.unctad.org/ReportFolders/reportFolders.aspx (accessed 15 March 2011)

Nota: * Estimate.

http://unctadatat.unctad.org/ReportFolders/reportFolders.aspx

http://unctadatat.unctad.org/ReportFolders/reportFolders.aspx

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FIGURE 2

BRICS: FOREIGN TRADE (IN MILLION OF CURRENT US$) AND SHARE OF GDP (PERCENTAGE)

EXPORTS + IMPORTS

PAÍSES 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

BRAZIL 8.719 25.412 61.212 113.762 393.379

CHINA 4.833 38.919 114.71 474.227 2.972.960

INDIA 4.792 28.839 51.144 93.941 540.489

RUSSIA - - 349.249 136.973 627.323

SOUTH AFRICA

8.352 50.411 48.6 56.782 161.953

Source: United Nations (2010); World Bank (2011).

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FIGURE 3

CHANGE IN INEQUALITY LEVELS, EARLY 1990s VERSUS 2000s GINI COEFFICIENT OF HOUSEHOLD INCOME

Figure taken from Courtney Ivins - “Inequality Matters – BRICS Inequalities Fact Sheet”, BRICS Policy Center and Oxfam, s/d.

Source: OECD-EU Database on Emerging Economies and World Bank, World Development Indicators. OECD Divided We Stand, 2011. Accessed at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932535432

1. Figures for the early 1990s generally refer to 1993, whereas figures for the late 2000s generally refer to 2008.

2. Gini coefficients are based on equalised incomes for OECD countries and per capita incomes for all EEs except India and Indonesia for which per capita consumption was used.

0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80

OECD

India

China

Russian Federation

South Africa

Late 2000s Early 1990s

Brazil

( )

collection of articles inesc & brics

Documents

brics countries

global perspective

social participation

domestic perspective

global research

equit institute

transnational institute

original text