JOSCHKA FISCHER
It would be a big mistake for the West to dismiss the recent BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) summit in Kazan – Russia’s unofficial “Islamic” capital – as an anti-Western sideshow of little consequence. Western governments might like to believe that the gathering showed a lack of unity and substance, but the reality is more complicated.
China, Russia, Brazil, and India established the BRICs in 2006 (South Africa joined in 2010) as a counterbalance to the G7, the club of leading Western industrialized countries, and to the US-dominated global order more broadly. While the initiative was never taken seriously in the West, the BRICS have evolved into a multilateral platform not only for countries like China and Russia – which want to end Western dominance and, in Russia’s case, establish a new, explicitly anti-Western global order – but also for more neutral emerging powers.
Moreover, the grouping recently expanded to include not just Iran and Ethiopia but also Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which have a strong interest in good relations with the United States and other Western governments (Saudi Arabia has accepted an invitation to join but has not yet formally done so). It therefore has made progress toward its goal of serving as a multilateral platform that is independent of the West and all economies reliant on the dollar or the euro.
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