Why the West should not dismiss the building of a Brics wall

The instrument of choice of Russia and China to chip away at US global influence is growing.

- Jonathan Eyal

Back in February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, it was slapped with the most draconian economic sanctions imposed on any state since World War II, and President Vladimir Putin became an international pariah.

Yet for much of this week, Mr Putin will act as gracious host to dozens of heads of state and government from around the world attending a summit of Brics, an intergovernmental association initially founded by Brazil, Russia, India and China, and then - after a brief interval - joined by South Africa.

Apart from being an impressive occasion and a rare opportunity for Mr Putin to reappear on the global stage, should this summit be taken seriously?

In many Western capitals - especially in Washington - dismissing Brics as just an exercise in political branding and an excuse for tiresome international summits is still fashionable.

But this dismissive view is both simplistic and outdated. Although Brics remains - at least for the moment - largely a talking shop, it is rapidly becoming the instrument of choice for both China and Russia to counter political edicts issued from Washington and to push back against the so-called Washington consensus of economic policies and institutions.

"What Brics is doing is gradually - brick by brick - building a bridge to a more democratic and just world order," claims Mr Yuri Ushakov, one of Mr Putin's key foreign policy advisers.

By a "just world order", Mr Ushakov means one in which the US is no longer the primary decision-maker. And although not all of the organisation's member states share Moscow's and Beijing's anti-Western priorities, Brics could become a serious challenge to Western governments in the years to come.

Ironically, an organisation that now essentially defines itself as non-Western was the brainchild of the most archetypal example of Western financial institutions: an asset manager of a prominent US multinational bank.