The China-dominated BRICS economic bloc on Thursday announced it has added 13 nations as “partner countries,” including three African nations: Nigeria, Algeria, and Uganda.
The announcement was reported by Russia’s Tass news service and confirmed by comments from Cuban and Nigerian government sources.
These partners will reportedly have much more limited involvement than full BRICS members, but some or all of them could aspire to membership in the future.
In addition to the three African nations, the list of BRICS partners includes Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
The original four members of the bloc, established in 2009, were Brazil, Russia, India, and China. South Africa joined in 2010.
Six new members were invited to join in 2023, including Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Argentina. Argentina declined the invitation after electing libertarian Javier Milei as its president. Four of them joined in January 2024, while Saudi Arabia has not formally answered the invitation.
At the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said over 30 more nations have expressed interest in joining the bloc. Other BRICS officials spoke more modestly of 13 potential members, who would seem to be the “partner nations” announced on Thursday.
These BRICS partners are not able to cast votes for bloc affairs and they will have only “selective” or limited participation in future summit meetings. Their partnership with BRICS is understood not to interfere with any other international commitments they might have.
It was not immediately clear why this nebulous “partner” status was created for the 13 aspirants. Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov on Tuesday portrayed partnership as a stepping stone to full membership. Other BRICS officials, including Putin, have hinted that the bloc is still working to integrate the new members accepted in January and might not be ready for another dramatic expansion of its roster.
BRICS still seems to be interested in expanding its membership as soon as possible. The summit in Kazan produced a statement saying the bloc wants to “pave the way for a more equitable, just, democratic, and balanced multipolar world order,” by which it means a post-American, post-NATO world order.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is unlikely to be satisfied with sitting at the kiddie table for very long. Erdogan is the only leader of a NATO country to attend the summit in Kazan and he conducted himself like the most important non-member in attendance, well aware that both Putin and NATO are ready to bid for his allegiance.
Frustrated by criticism from his NATO allies and his inability to join the European Union, Erdogan clearly wanted to let the world know he is open to dating other transnational alliances, even if he and BRICS are not quite ready to go steady yet.
China’s state-run Global Times celebrated the expanding BRICS membership as another sign that twilight has arrived for the post-World War II Western order.
The Global Times quoted Chinese dictator Xi Jinping hailing the enlargement of BRICS as a “landmark event in the evolution of the international situation.” He touted the bloc as a vehicle for “strengthening solidarity and cooperation among Global South nations,” which could give the China-led alliance enough muscle to implement “global governance reform” – by which Xi means stripping the U.S. and Europe of their influence.
The Global Times eagerly provided backup vocals for Xi’s “Death of the West” performance by gushing about how much of the world’s surface area is controlled by BRICS nations, and how the bloc is “shaping global trends in world politics to a large extent.”
This grandiose language is somewhat out of step with how little BRICS has actually done over its 15-year lifespan, although some of its leaders have very big plans for the future, such as Russia and China’s determination to create an “alternative financial system” that would dethrone the U.S. dollar and destroy the Western world’s ability to impose human rights sanctions.
“The BRICS have finally found a unifying mission: circumventing American financial dominance,” Columbia University senior research scholar Edward Fishman told Voice of America News (VOA) on Wednesday.
“For BRICS members under U.S. sanctions, namely Russia and Iran, this mission is already a top national priority. Others such as China see it as a handy way to insulate themselves from potential sanctions in the future,” he explained.
This could certainly be part of the appeal for countries like Uganda, which is furious over U.S. sanctions imposed in May. The sanctions ostensibly targeted corruption and human rights violations, but many Ugandans believe they were an act of revenge against officials who supported the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Law. The U.S. insistence on promoting LGBTQ ideology has become a sticking point in relations with many developing nations, especially in Africa.
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