As Brics expands, China-India rivalry could shape its future trajectory

The 15-year-old Brics grouping, a coalition of major developing countries, has made history with its first expansion in more than a decade, welcoming Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates to the club.

- Nirmala Ganapathy

From five world leaders traditionally standing side by side for the requisite photo op at the grouping's annual meeting, the stage got more crowded in host city Kazan, Russia, in late October with nine men representing nearly half the world's population and more than a quarter of global economic output.

China would be pleased with this milestone, since it has been pushing for Brics to grow its membership to build a bigger counterweight to the Western-dominated international order and system of economic governance.

The expanded grouping, from original members Brazil, Russia, India and China, and South Africa - which joined in 2010 - is set to overshadow the Group of Seven (G-7) advanced economies.

Just in October, the International Monetary Fund in its latest outlook forecast that the world economy will rely on the Brics emerging economies, led by China, to fuel growth in the next five years, rather than the developed Western nations.

For China, Brics has helped to bolster its credentials as a leader of the Global South, as it seeks to bring more developing countries into the fold. More than 40 states are said to have expressed interest in joining the group.

Thanks to China's economic might, its influence in the grouping far exceeds the other countries'. In 2022, for instance, its share of the bloc's collective gross domestic product was almost 70 per cent.

"I think Brics does help to strengthen China's status as the leader of the Global South, but China's own Belt and Road Initiative is the key source of power that empowers China as the leader of the Global South," said Professor Li Xing of the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies. He was referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping's signature foreign policy, which seeks to link the country to the rest of the world through a network of ports, roads and railways as well as trading hubs.