BRICS Week Part 01- Guest blog by Floriano Filho

This week we are reaching across our Chevening alumni network in the BRICS countries, to understand a little more about what they think the future of BRICS is. We hope to be able to share opinions from some of our alumni in these countries over the week. This first piece is from Brazil where the summit is taking place. Floriano Filho, a a Chevening alumni from 2001, shares his views and ideas surrounding the BRICS.

“My space in this blog is not enough to elaborate on all the implications of creating and nurturing the integration of the world’s five major emerging economies. So I will stick to some very basic and general ideas surrounding the BRICS.

It is not a secret to anyone that a number of countries, particularly the US and its closest allies have been showing some discomfort with the reunion of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The uneasiness does not seem to be fighting communism anymore.

One of the main issues at stake now seems to be how to preserve the global international order (or at least contain its demise), and its underlying international financial system.

There has been criticism and even disbelief regarding the announcement of a new BRICS development bank by 2016, creating an alternative to the IMF. The Russian Finance Minister, Anton Siluanov, has spoken of the “New Development Bank“, with its headquarters in Shanghai or in New Dheli, which will focus on BRICS infrastructure projects, but would also be open to new members from the United Nations.

For some, this would be a replica of the work already carried out by the World Bank or the IMF, including in cases of capital flight or currency devaluation. The critics might have a point there, but the new kids on the block claim there is a democratic deficit in the Bretton Woods institutions and in the UN system. In other words, they feel underrepresented in the decision-making process of a system traditionally dominated by the US and the European Union.

Critics go further and complain that these changes on the global geopolitical chessboard may not work, given alleged economic and political asymmetries within the BRICs; especially taking into account Chinese and Russian governance standards as compared to the democratic values traditionally proclaimed by Western nations. From the Brazilian and Indian democratic perspectives, that might seem a fair point. But if we are talking about investment and trade, the complaints do not seem to be consistent with the volumes of capital and trade flows between the US, the EU, and the BRICS country with the most dynamic trade, China.

There are other concerns related to the global order such as energy or regional conflicts. One of the many confrontations going on in the world right now involves Russia and Ukraine, causing great concern in Europe. But as Janning rightly puts it, “marginalization of Europe is not the inevitable trajectory of Europe’s global role in light of the rise of BRICS. A significant part of Europe’s economic future is tied to the development of these countries and to the ways and means by which they will define and secure their role in world affairs. Instability, insecurity and conflict within and around BRICS countries will profoundly impact on Europe with few options for EU leaders to shape events, other than to engage early and by using the assets Europeans hold – economic interdependence and trade, technology and governance skills.”

As the strengthening of the BRICS is just starting to take shape, it seems too early to reach clear conclusions. At this point, though, what seems to be out of question for those countries is to ignore pragmatism.”

Floriano Filho is a Chevening alumni from 2001, when he did an MA Communications Policies at the University of Westminster. He is also a Reuters Foundation fellow at Oxford University (global trade of digital content) and currently doing a PhD at the University of Brasilia on international cooperation: Brazil-Japan in Mozambique’s Nacala Corridor.