When leaders of the Brics group of emerging economies meet in New Delhi on September 12-13, India will confront an awkward paradox: the grouping has never been bigger or harder to make coherent.
What informally began as a four-member bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2006 has expanded into a grouping spanning Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Its members include major energy exporters, manufacturing powers, emerging economies and countries with sharply different relationships with Washington and Beijing. That makes Brics a more credible voice for the Global South.
It also makes consensus much harder. For India, the Delhi summit is therefore less a test of whether Brics can become an alternative to the Western-led order than whether it can turn its diversity into something useful. The answer will depend heavily on how New Delhi manages its most obvious contradiction: China.
India wants Brics to give emerging economies greater influence over global institutions and reduce their vulnerability to Western-dominated financial systems. However, it has no interest in replacing dependence on the US dollar with dependence on China. That tension will shape the summit’s biggest ambitions, particularly de-dollarisation, cross-border payments and supply chain cooperation.
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