Everything is ready for this Tuesday’s opening of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. For President Vladimir Putin will it will be an opportunity to personally engage with multiple world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian.
The multipolarity is on, and dedollarization is on everyone’s minds.
Associated Press reported:
“They will all be in the Russian city of Kazan on Tuesday for a meeting of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, defying predictions that the war in Ukraine and an international arrest warrant against Putin would turn him into a pariah.”
Initially, the group was formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – but lately it started to rapidly expand.
Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia joined in January; Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia also formally applied, along with a rather large number of other countries who have expressed a desire to join.
Russia sees the meeting as a great success. 36 countries confirmed participation, and of those, more than 20 will send heads of state.
Putin will hold around 20 bilateral meetings in ‘the largest foreign policy event ever held on Russian soil’. How’s that for isolation?
For many participants, the Summit is a chance to amplify their voices and narratives.
“’The beauty of BRICS is that it doesn’t put too many obligations on you’, said Alexander Gabuyev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. ‘There are not that many strings attached, really, to being part of BRICS. And at the same time, there might be interesting opportunities coming your way, including just having more face time with all of these leaders’.”
A new payment system project is on the works that wants to be an alternative to the global bank messaging network SWIFT, allowing countries to settle their transactions in national currencies.
“’The Russian idea is that if you create a platform where there is China, Russia, India and Brazil and Saudi Arabia, many countries that are vital partners for the U.S., the U.S. will not be ready to go after this platform and sanction it’,” Gabuyev said.”
Of course, the Putin and China’s Xi Jinping is the most anticipated.
“The summit will allow Xi and Putin to flaunt their close relationship. The two, who announced a ‘no-limits’ partnership weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, already have met at least twice this year, in Beijing in May and at a SCO summit in Kazakhstan in July.”
An expected Modi-Putin meeting could see some rebalancing of their time-tested ties.
“’India can’t simply abandon Russia because of its deep defense ties, the question of the regional balance of power, and the logic of multi-alignment’, said Raja Mohan, a professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies in Singapore. ‘At the same time, it also builds and develops its relations with the U.S. and the West because that is where the logic of India’s major economic development and technological growth depends on partnership’.”
It is often understood that India and Brazil view BRICS primarily as an economic forum, while China and Russia see it more as a geopolitical group.
Another key participant this year is Turkey, a NATO member and European Union candidate which has ALSO applied to join the BRICS group.
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