Why India is wary of China’s BRICS expansion push as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt seek to join

Neither India nor Brazil want to lose influence in the bloc, with New Delhi concerned that enlargement would only grow Beijing’s strategic influence
All current members share a desire to reform the international system, analysts say, but a new world order is mostly in Russia and China’s interest

China-India relations

Maria Siow

Published: 9:30am, 5 Jul 2023

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Not all members of the BRICS bloc of major emerging economies are getting behind the push to expand it, with India particularly “wary” of the plan, analysts say, as doubt lingers about whether the grouping could become a counterweight to existing regional alliances.

When the BRICS members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – gather for a leadership summit next month in Johannesburg, front runners to join the bloc will include Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Bangladesh and Iran.

A three-day meeting involving senior officials began on Tuesday, with the expansion proposal expected to be on the agenda.

Once seen as a loose association of diverse emerging economies, BRICS – aimed at promoting peace, security, development and cooperation – represents 43 per cent of the world’s population, 26 per cent of its land area and about 30 per cent of the global economy.

India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has said the process for expanding BRICS is still “a work in progress”. Photo: AFP

China said last year it wanted the bloc to start working on admitting new members, but Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said last month that the process was still a “work in progress”, citing the need to deliberate on standards, criteria and procedures of what an expanded grouping would look like.

Oliver Stuenkel, an associate international-relations professor at Fundacao Getulio Vargas, a university in Brazil, said there was some concern within India as to “what extent an expansion is in New Delhi’s interest”.

“I think we’d have to wait and see if there’d be any significant movements in that direction,” Stuenkel said, noting that China was by far the strongest advocate of an enlarged BRICS, followed by Russia. Both India and Brazil, meanwhile, were “a bit wary of losing influence in a large grouping”, he added.

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“The new members would largely join to be closer to China and not to Brazil or India,” Stuenkel said, adding that the bloc had already emerged as a counterweight to the West and an alternative model to the powerful Group of 7 comprising Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

“Irrespective of whether there will be an expansion, the five BRICS countries [already] have significant influence in their respective regions,” Stuenkel said.

Anu Anwar, a fellow at Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said India’s recent tilt towards the West suggested it was an “outlier” in BRICS, which means it “makes sense” for other members to want to expand the bloc.

In recent times, Delhi has strengthened economic, defence and technological cooperation with the US, Japan, Australia and the European Union, and has played an active role in the Quad security grouping, particularly by producing vaccines for the Indo-Pacific region amid the pandemic.

The Quad – which also includes Australia, Japan and the US – was revived in recent years in response to China’s growing global influence.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) with the leaders of Japan, Australia and the United States at a Quad meeting in May. Photo: Reuters

Anwar said it was unlikely that BRICS could emerge as an alternative to the G7, as almost all countries in the first-world grouping were Nato members or in other forms of military alliances with the US.

“None of the BRICS members have a military alliance among themselves, and it is highly unlikely to form one in the near future,” Anwar said, adding that such an alliance was key to building a new world order.

“Although expanding members to a few middle powers and regional players could indeed make a significant shift in the global balance of power, it is unlikely to contribute to forming an alternative international order.”

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Günther Maihold, deputy director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said creating a new world order was clearly in China and Russia’s interests.

“They are together fostering the enlargement of BRICS in order to legitimise this aspiration,” Maihold said, noting that Brazil, India and South Africa were more interested in maintaining the status quo.

Maihold said China’s interest in enlarging the group and “extending its clout” might be “counterproductive” as it could generate resistance from other BRICS members and the fairly informal group might be even more difficult to manage after expansion.

“[It might also] generate more internal rivalries,” Maihold said, referring not just to poor relations between China and India over border clashes, but also the competition for greater regional and international influence.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the BRICS summit in Goa in 2016. Photo: AP

Shirley Ze Yu, a senior practitioner fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Centre, said an enlarged BRICS would reflect the bloc’s strength and Beijing’s growing influence, as China alone represented two-thirds of the BRICS’ gross domestic product.

“As more members subscribe to a common multilateral framework, China will become the rule-setter,” Yu said, noting that any country occupying such a role would carry tremendous influence in the decades to come.

Yu, also director of the China-Africa Initiative at the London School of Economics, added that unlike Western blocs, BRICS countries were not aligned based on a common ideology, but instead on a common desire to reform the existing international system to reflect the development needs of emerging economies.

The New Development Bank, formerly the BRICS Development Bank, was established in 2015 with the aim of funding infrastructure developments in emerging economies. Photo: Reuters

Financing development

Established in 2015 by the BRICS countries, the New Development Bank (NDB) is aimed at funding infrastructure developments in emerging economies, similar to the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Since its establishment, the NDB has granted loans worth US$33 billion to more than 96 projects within the five founding-member countries, according to its website.

Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang said at the bank’s annual meeting in May that Beijing remained determined to develop the NDB into an open multilateral bank, adding that the NDB was designed to better serve emerging economies by financing more infrastructure and sustainable projects.

The NDB has accepted Bangladesh, the UAE and Egypt as new members in recent years. Uruguay is in the process of joining, while Saudi Arabia is also in talks to join.

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Stuenkel said given the bank’s earlier expansion, new countries were likely to join soon, noting that the NDB was capable of countering the influence of Western- dominated multilateral banks such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

“It already does so,” Stuenkel said, noting that that there was strong demand across the developing world for a more powerful and more influential NDB. “The potential for an NDB expansion is probably greatest and where the impact of the BRICS grouping is most tangible.”

However, Anwar said that the NDB’s assets and areas of operation meant that it only played a supplementary role and was currently unable to replace the World Bank and the IMF.

“New membership will certainly bring more capital and expand the area of operation in those infrastructure areas”, he said, but these would not “obliterate the traditional role of [the World Bank and the IMF] as global financial market regulator and stabiliser”.