Dissatisfaction in many countries about how power is distributed internationally is an important lesson to draw from this event
President of China Xi Jinping and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attend a meeting during the 2023 BRICS Summit at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg last week. The Brics summit in Johannesburg last week was a significant event in the changing international order. The decision to enlarge membership is both ambitious and ambiguous in the current changing times.
That dissatisfaction about how power is distributed is a more important lesson to draw from this event than how the decision to enlarge aligns with existing polarisations between west-east, north-south or liberal-authoritarian states. The five Brics states are frankly and openly divided on such alignments, mainly because their own interests are not adequately expressed by them. They hope to change the calculus by enlarging the alignments on offer.
South Africa, the host state, supported enlarging the group, whereas the Indian and Brazilian leaders initially opposed that for fear of Brics becoming vulnerable to current divisions between the United States and China. Seen thus, Russia and China want the group to become a new polar alternative to the Western order -– and they have a good deal to be pleased about in what happened. But the outcome is also an alternative to such crudely polarised choices.
This is a new world in the making. The European Union and its members did not feature to any significant extent – and need to up their diplomatic efforts in this game. Ireland has much to learn from its unfolding and must reflect more constructively on its own transition to a more developed country.
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