When blocs reach for loftier goals, though, they involuntarily become fodder for satirists. The BRICS have floated the idea of a joint currency – the better to topple the hated US dollar from its global perch.
But only one bloc, the EU, has ever achieved monetary union, and even that at the cost of recurring near-death experiences. The notion that the BRICS would pool their money, central banks, fiscal and monetary policy is, as O’Neill the nomenclator puts it, “ridiculous.”
CHINA’S LOFTY AIMS
In reality, each of the five BRICS is in it for different reasons.
Take China. It wants to displace the US as a hegemon and keeps seeding blocs it thinks it can dominate for that purpose. Those include the Belt and Road Initiative, a trans-continental infrastructure program, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a Eurasian grouping, and the tellingly named 16+1 (formerly 17+1), a format in which China allegedly cooperates with Central and Eastern European countries. As the Europeans in that club have figured out, though, the +1 really just wanted to boss around the 16.
Given the aims of the C in BRICS, neither the B, R, I or S nor other countries that have expressed an interest in joining, such as Indonesia, can really be enthusiastic about becoming Beijing’s vassals just to teach Washington a lesson. That’s one reason why the forum will struggle to project soft power, much less hard.
Another reason is the company it’s forced to keep. It never helps a club when one member can’t show up because the International Criminal Court has a warrant out for their arrest.
In this case, that’s Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing war crimes charges for allegedly deporting children from occupied areas of Ukraine, who’ll participate via video link to avoid being handcuffed on arrival in Johannesburg.
How the hosts curate that delicate situation, and whether everyone in the room keeps a straight face, including Putin’s foreign minister, will be worth watching. But a new world order will be nowhere to be seen.
Source: CNA
