Sino File | This stumbling bloc has hit a BRICS wall

In global diplomatic circles, one of the most talked about trends of recent years has been the rising influence of fast growing developing economies.

The acronym (originally just BRIC) was coined in 2001 by the Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neil to highlight the increasingly important role developing countries were playing in the global economy. In 2008, the acronym morphed into a formal association in the hope the grouping would become a rival and counterbalance to the US-led Western global order, as typified by institutions such as the G7.

Fast forward to 2018 and the BRICS countries now contain more than 40 per cent of the world’s population and almost a quarter of the world’s gross output (jumping from just 11 per cent in 1990).

Trump, China and Europe: one enemy at a time please

According to O’Neil, the BRICS bloc is still on track to become collectively as large as the G7 economies by 2035. This suggests the global economy will soon straddle two worlds – the developed and the developing – assuming, that is, that the BRICS can keep up the momentum of the past decade.

Thus it was with understandable reason that the 10th annual BRICS summit, held last week in Johannesburg, South Africa, caught the world’s attention, particularly given it came amid an escalating trade conflict between the United States and China – the giants of the developed and developing world.

However, amid all the excitement surrounding the BRICS, it is all too easy to remember that the bloc is a disparate group of nations with very little to link them other than a shared status as economies in transition. They differ in terms geographic size, language, form of governance and are also vastly different in size of GDP (China accounts for 41 per cent of BRICS GDP).