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I'll be frank, every article that presents BRICS as a real thing is propaganda. It isn't a coincidence that we're seeing a lot more of them since Russia invaded

I'll be frank, every article that presents BRICS as a real thing is propaganda. It isn't a coincidence that we're seeing a lot more of them since Russia invaded Ukraine. India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes. South Africa is a failed state and it has negligible influence on the world stage. Brazil is one of the reasons why the term "middle-income trap" was devised. BRICS members don't even vote in each other's favor in the UN. Russia has received zero meaningful assistance from them during the war in Ukraine. It's entirely possible that in the future a real anti-western bloc will emerge. But it isn't BRICS.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago
>BRICS members don't even vote in each other's favor in the UN. The United States is frequently at odds with its G7 partners when it comes to UN votes, especially those involving the Middle East. Does that mean the G7 is fake?
favorited 4y ago
Because it's just a thing that a British economist predicted 2 decades ago. It has no basis in reality.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  Yes. Jim O'Neil (the economist in question) grouped them together in a piece of economic research for Goldman Sachs as examples of fast-growing developing economies that he believed would overtake the G7 in terms of GDP by 2050. [1] They weren't ever imagined as a political grouping that would work together as far as I know. [1] https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/archive/archive-pdfs/build-better-brics.pdf https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/archive/archive-pdfs/b... is his original paper I believe
sho_hn 4y ago
What's going on in South Africa?
- jyscao 4y ago
  The standard: high violent crime rates and a failing economy.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  And when did it get added? Or have I been misreading this for years? I always thought the label was "BRIC".
  - FredPret 4y ago
    They needed an African representative
  - prottog 4y ago
    It's been BRICS for as long as I can remember.
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      Found the answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC Original term (referring to no formal organization) was BRIC, coined in 2001. BRICs common as a plural form, as in "the BRICs" (which I recall seeing), but not BRICS. The four countries started holding summits in 2009, and in 2010 declared South Africa part of the group, at which point a specific sense of the term (referring to invitees to these summits and members of related efforts or organizations) became BRICS.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  Extreme corruption and energy problems leading to riots and concerns over civil war https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/stockpile-food-and-water-south-africa-faces-civil-war-conditions-if-power-grid-collapses/news-story/231d976d93e9a34ef8dfaf0ac3db6582 https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/stockp...
  - hulitu 4y ago
    [flagged]
thriftwy 4y ago
It is not unusual that India and China are at odds sometimes. It is however a big mystery why EU and USA get along so well. The globe should feel a little too small for these ones.
- throwaway29812 4y ago
  > It is however a big mystery why EU and USA get along so well. Not if you study their history.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  We don't get along so well. See the data processing agreements that are just ping-ponging in the courts because they are incompatible with EU laws. This causes similar issues with the use of American social media in Europe as the US' concerns about TikTok. It's an uneasy friendship at best. Interest in NATO was also waning, but of course Putin's recent aggression has revitalized this in a big way.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Europe doesn't want to be controlled by the US, but that doesn't mean they don't want to be good friends. They want to be equals, or at least more so.
- dotnet00 4y ago
  EU and USA have their spats, but overall they share relatively similar values and have similar interests in maintaining the general status quo. Both are content enough with their position in the world to not go around fighting over territory. Lately they're also putting an effort into getting along well because any significant disagreement might bleed into the Ukraine war in some manner.
unity1001 4y ago
> I'll be frank, every article that presents BRICS as a real thing is propaganda Huh? Its an actual organization with actual rules and actual institutions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS Brazil's ex president Rousseff has been elected the president of the bank of that non-existing organization. https://brazilian.report/liveblog/2023/03/24/dilma-rousseff-brics-bank-2/ https://brazilian.report/liveblog/2023/03/24/dilma-rousseff-... How does one get elected to be the president of the bank of something that is 'not real'... > BRICS members don't even vote in each other's favor in the UN. Russia has received zero meaningful assistance from them during the war in Ukraine. False. And even if true, that wouldnt change the existence of the actual organization, its rules, and the arrangements in between countries. What happens in the UN is mostly PR. Brazil voted to condemn the war in Ukraine because the left-wing segment that Lula and his crowd belongs to condemns all wars, and yet it voted in favor of the Nord Stream investigation. > India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes. South Africa is a failed state and it has negligible influence on the world stage. Brazil is one of the reasons why the term "middle-income trap" was devised......It's entirely possible that in the future a real anti-western bloc will emerge. But it isn't BRICS This feels like a lot of reality-denial. Or copium at best...
- jerf 4y ago
  I think it's a bit of both. There is a real organization, with real interests, that are at this point mostly being held together by the desire to no longer be dominated by the US-centric dollar-based system. If the US fades, this unifying principle will disappear over time, and the unity of this organization would as well. Already some of what it has accomplished, to some great fanfare in certain places, strikes me as being nothing more, and nothing less, than that. It isn't as unified as some would like to present, and it isn't something that the existing world powers should just ignore as irrelevant. It's complicated. It's a complicated time in world history, as transitions are.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    I'd mostly agree with this analysis. I don't see them holding together absent the unipolar NATO-dominated world giving them common ground, as they're mainly composed of the top representative states of all three major non-NATO blocs from the Cold War (Soviet, Maoist, and "3rd world" movement) and there's a reason those three groups weren't all pals back then.
chrisco255 4y ago
I guess? I mean, I know India and China did not sanction Russia and still freely trade with them. Probably Brazil as well? The "Global South" or everything outside of US/UK & Commonwealth/EU/Japan def acts far more independently in global politics while the aforementioned seem to be in lockstep.
- unmole 4y ago
  > Commonwealth India is part of the Commonwealth. So is Pakistan. The idea that the Commonwealth moves in lockstep is plain silly.
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    Sorry, always think of India & Pakistan as different because they were occupied territories as opposed to colonies populated by British & European immigrants.
    - poloniculmov 4y ago
      Only a couple of the African members were never occupied by the British, the rest are all occupied territories.
rayiner 4y ago
This is extremely incorrect. India is buying Russian gas and cooperating on payment networks to bypass American sanctions: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-using-swift-global-payment-system-settle-dollar-trade-with-russia-source-2023-03-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-using-swift-global... The connection between the subcontinent and Russia is longstanding. Socialism was foundational to the post-independence government organization of both India and Bangladesh. My mom grew up reading Russian literature that has been translated into Bangla. Both India and Bangladesh abstained from a UN vote that called for Russia to remove troops from Ukraine: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-explains-why-it-abstained-at-un-vote-on-ukraine-with-3-piercing-questions-101677253567257.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-explains-why... As to China, it is all over India and Bangladesh, loaning money for infrastructure projects, etc. China is building the new subway in Dhaka: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1256874.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1256874.shtml. I had hoped for more alignment of India and Bangladesh with the Anglosphere after the fall of the Soviet Union, but things have absolutely gone in the opposite direction. Russia, China, and India are an almost complete alternative to the west. There is very little that can’t be handled using home grown solutions in one of those three countries, and that list is getting shorter daily.
- dralley 4y ago
  >India is buying Russian gas There is no expectation that every country in the world cease buying Russian fuels, that's why the price cap was put in place. And India is abiding the price cap. The hysteria about developing countries buying Russian oil/gas is mostly from the media, but so long as Russia is barely hitting breakeven prices then there is little reason for Western governments to care where India or others get their energy from. Europe is cutting their dependence because it was/is actively being used as a weapon against them.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    Both India and China have rejected the price cap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_crude_oil_price_cap_sanctions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_crude_oil_price_c.... The price cap drove market prices lower, and India has continued to buy at market price. The reason the price cap was so high was because negotiations in mid-2022 revealed that developing nations wouldn’t go along.
pphysch 4y ago
The five stages of grief. There is an enormous anti-Washington bloc. So what, it isn't perfectly encapsulated in a single organization yet. That's natural due to its rapid growth.
- refulgentis 4y ago
  Motte and Bailey. This is just vibes
  - pphysch 4y ago
    Definitely. The geopolitical environment is very stable and Washington is firmly in control of the unipolar world order. The global USD is thriving. Stage 1: Denial.
    - refulgentis 4y ago
      You should probably look at charts of things people talk about to you
      - pphysch 4y ago
        What?
- peppermint_gum 4y ago
  >The five stages of grief. You're right but not in the way you think. Russia is desperate to prove they aren't isolated internationally.
  - unmole 4y ago
    > Russia is desperate to prove they aren't isolated internationally. BRICS make up 40% of the world's population.
    - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
lazyninja987 4y ago
[dead]
seizethecheese 4y ago
The argument here misses the point. This BRICS isn’t so much a political block as symbol of diffusing economic power. Since geopolitical power follows economic power, this is a leading indicator of the waning of American hegemony.
lenkite 4y ago
"India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes." Border skirmishes with sticks and fists actually - commanders on both sides firmly respect the "no firearms" rule. The only deaths were in the 2020 flare up. Since then, the recent encounters have been quite literally "body checking" the border with muscle. Yet the current skirmishes and any future skirmishes have not and will not affect ongoing trade and investment. India still has $119 billion trade with China. China is India's top trading partner in 2023. There is also significant Chinese investment in India - Oppo, Vivo, Fosun, etc. Meanwhile Russia continues to be the single largest supplier of crude oil for India, which is converted into petrol and diesel at refineries, for a fifth straight month by supplying more than one-third of all oil India imported. India is ambivalent/negative to Ukraine and generally abstains from all US proposals that are anti-Russian. Ukraine had voted against India several times in the UNSC and also armed Pakistan and this is remembered by the Indian government. Some Americans appear to mistake BRICS as some sort of political/military alliance. It is not - its a trade/economy focused alliance whose founding impetus was the 2008 economic crisis where the world paid the price for bad US economic policies. There is also a movement away from the US dollar to other national currencies in BRICS nations - though India is not a part of this movement - the US is India's second largest trading partner after all.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  > Ukraine had voted against India several times in the UNSC and also armed Pakistan and this is remembered by the Indian government. Which is why Imran Khan’s pro Russia position was so stupid
  - lenkite 4y ago
    I believe he was looking for cheap oil to kick-start the economy. But Pakistan doesn't have the special refineries that India has to process Russian oil anyways, so he would have been better served to stay silent and do stuff quietly in the background. Unfortunately, he made a fuss and the US subtly engineered his departure. He is now effectively a non-entity.
    - 4y ago
steponlego 4y ago
China and Russia are partners, allies. Are you one of those people who sits there furiously praying they’ll fight WWIII against each other? It’s delusional.
alxlaz 4y ago
Lots of comments here are trying to poke holes in the parent comment, and missing its substance as a consequence. There is, first and foremost, the elephant in the room which everyone ignores because everyone's thinking Russia these days. That elephant is China, which acts as the extremely valuable missing link to G7 economies. China and the G7 group are wholy interdependent, whether they're willing to admit it or not. One without the other, at least at this moment in time, would be Chapter 1 of a dystopian novel about societal collapse. We've had a whiff of that during the supply chain crisis in the pandemic -- and that was just some clogged logistics. Anyone taking this as proof that BRICS is now its own thing that can stand on its own is just as wrong as anyone thinking that G7 is its own thing that can stand on its own. They're not. And any factor that's straining the relation between the two blocs (via China) is not likely to be viewed with wholly favourable eyes by either parties, even though some of them can't acknowledge that publicly due to ideological reasons, or are happy to let it be for as long as it causes more trouble on the other side. Second, lots of the economic activity that happens inside BRICS is decidedly not happening in the "cooperation" side of the cooperation-competition-conflict framework, or within any unreservedly friendly quadrant of any framework. Russia, for instance, is a major supplier for the Indian defense industry not so much because of historical socialist ties, but because it's the only major supplier it can realistically deal with without major restrictions. It has a hot border dispute with China, another hot border dispute with a regional ally (Pakistan) of another major supplier (US and the NATO bloc), and has fought real wars with both in the last sixty years. Russia and China aren't sharing fatherly influence over India and Bangladesh, or over post-Soviet Asia, they're competing for influence in much of it. Just like China and Brazil are competing for regional influence in some of South America, just like China and South Africa are competing for regional influence in some of Africa. Third, people are also forgetting an important lesson from recent history: on the eve of World War II, Franco-German commercial relations were extraordinary. Actually, Germany had excellent trade relations with most of Europe. Most of the arguments about BRICS today readily translate to FIGUC (France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, Czechoslovakia) cca. 1936, including caveats like they're backing opposite parties in some regional conflicts/civil war. Economic interests and common enemies are transitory; geopolitical aspirations are far more durable. This isn't to say that BRICS is "not a real alliance". It is, it's bound by real economic relations, and there is plenty of competition within the G7 bloc as well. However, its potential for global cooperation outside the economic sphere is greatly diminished by the current state of mutual foreign relations, and competition, between its members. BRICS cannot, at least for now, achieve any more than G7 could've achieved back when Germany was trying to widen its military supply sources so as not to depend on France because there was a real chance they might into it over Alsace, the way India is now trying to widen its military supply sources so as not to depend on China or the US because there's a real chance they might get into it over LoCs in Kashmir.
marcosdumay 4y ago
> It's entirely possible that in the future a real anti-western bloc will emerge. But it isn't BRICS. What a bullshit level of US centrism. The BRICS is not an anti-US (and yes, I'm sure you meant US) bloc. It's a pro-middle-income country bloc. There is no reason to align on issues not related to middle-income countries economics.
kamaal 4y ago
>>India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes. As an Indian speaking very frankly India and China are frenemies. There is going to be no major war between these two. Contrary to whatever it looks from a distance, it won't. India and China are very likely to indulge in intense co-operative competition with Russia as an another mediating partner. In many ways this is already the case. I also believe over time a similar equation will emerge between India and Pakistan and China playing the same role as Russia in this case.
Yizahi 4y ago
Anti-"western" block will come and go in droves as long as they are petulant children blocks, built on the contrarianism - "just make everything opposite of what west thinks and does". And since sociopaths who usually come to power with similar ideology are usually incompetent, these blocks and countries will continue to fail like clockwork.
tpoacher 4y ago
Say a term enough times and it gets established by people who repeat it. Like "nanoparticles", or "data science" or "codes". Ironically, by venting about how BRICS is not a thing, you've helped a tiny bit more into making it a thing for people who read your post. That's just how it works.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

>BRICS members don't even vote in each other's favor in the UN. The United States is frequently at odds with its G7 partners when it comes to UN votes, especially those involving the Middle East. Does that mean the G7 is fake?

favorited 4y ago

Because it's just a thing that a British economist predicted 2 decades ago. It has no basis in reality.

seanhunter 4y ago
Yes. Jim O'Neil (the economist in question) grouped them together in a piece of economic research for Goldman Sachs as examples of fast-growing developing economies that he believed would overtake the G7 in terms of GDP by 2050. [1] They weren't ever imagined as a political grouping that would work together as far as I know. [1] https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/archive/archive-pdfs/build-better-brics.pdf https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/archive/archive-pdfs/b... is his original paper I believe

sho_hn 4y ago

What's going on in South Africa?

jyscao 4y ago
The standard: high violent crime rates and a failing economy.
yamtaddle 4y ago
And when did it get added? Or have I been misreading this for years? I always thought the label was "BRIC".
- FredPret 4y ago
  They needed an African representative
- prottog 4y ago
  It's been BRICS for as long as I can remember.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Found the answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC Original term (referring to no formal organization) was BRIC, coined in 2001. BRICs common as a plural form, as in "the BRICs" (which I recall seeing), but not BRICS. The four countries started holding summits in 2009, and in 2010 declared South Africa part of the group, at which point a specific sense of the term (referring to invitees to these summits and members of related efforts or organizations) became BRICS.
wkat4242 4y ago
Extreme corruption and energy problems leading to riots and concerns over civil war https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/stockpile-food-and-water-south-africa-faces-civil-war-conditions-if-power-grid-collapses/news-story/231d976d93e9a34ef8dfaf0ac3db6582 https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/stockp...
- hulitu 4y ago
  [flagged]

thriftwy 4y ago

It is not unusual that India and China are at odds sometimes. It is however a big mystery why EU and USA get along so well. The globe should feel a little too small for these ones.

throwaway29812 4y ago
> It is however a big mystery why EU and USA get along so well. Not if you study their history.
wkat4242 4y ago
We don't get along so well. See the data processing agreements that are just ping-ponging in the courts because they are incompatible with EU laws. This causes similar issues with the use of American social media in Europe as the US' concerns about TikTok. It's an uneasy friendship at best. Interest in NATO was also waning, but of course Putin's recent aggression has revitalized this in a big way.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Europe doesn't want to be controlled by the US, but that doesn't mean they don't want to be good friends. They want to be equals, or at least more so.
dotnet00 4y ago
EU and USA have their spats, but overall they share relatively similar values and have similar interests in maintaining the general status quo. Both are content enough with their position in the world to not go around fighting over territory. Lately they're also putting an effort into getting along well because any significant disagreement might bleed into the Ukraine war in some manner.

unity1001 4y ago

> I'll be frank, every article that presents BRICS as a real thing is propaganda Huh? Its an actual organization with actual rules and actual institutions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS Brazil's ex president Rousseff has been elected the president of the bank of that non-existing organization. https://brazilian.report/liveblog/2023/03/24/dilma-rousseff-brics-bank-2/ https://brazilian.report/liveblog/2023/03/24/dilma-rousseff-... How does one get elected to be the president of the bank of something that is 'not real'... > BRICS members don't even vote in each other's favor in the UN. Russia has received zero meaningful assistance from them during the war in Ukraine. False. And even if true, that wouldnt change the existence of the actual organization, its rules, and the arrangements in between countries. What happens in the UN is mostly PR. Brazil voted to condemn the war in Ukraine because the left-wing segment that Lula and his crowd belongs to condemns all wars, and yet it voted in favor of the Nord Stream investigation. > India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes. South Africa is a failed state and it has negligible influence on the world stage. Brazil is one of the reasons why the term "middle-income trap" was devised......It's entirely possible that in the future a real anti-western bloc will emerge. But it isn't BRICS This feels like a lot of reality-denial. Or copium at best...

jerf 4y ago
I think it's a bit of both. There is a real organization, with real interests, that are at this point mostly being held together by the desire to no longer be dominated by the US-centric dollar-based system. If the US fades, this unifying principle will disappear over time, and the unity of this organization would as well. Already some of what it has accomplished, to some great fanfare in certain places, strikes me as being nothing more, and nothing less, than that. It isn't as unified as some would like to present, and it isn't something that the existing world powers should just ignore as irrelevant. It's complicated. It's a complicated time in world history, as transitions are.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I'd mostly agree with this analysis. I don't see them holding together absent the unipolar NATO-dominated world giving them common ground, as they're mainly composed of the top representative states of all three major non-NATO blocs from the Cold War (Soviet, Maoist, and "3rd world" movement) and there's a reason those three groups weren't all pals back then.

chrisco255 4y ago

I guess? I mean, I know India and China did not sanction Russia and still freely trade with them. Probably Brazil as well? The "Global South" or everything outside of US/UK & Commonwealth/EU/Japan def acts far more independently in global politics while the aforementioned seem to be in lockstep.

unmole 4y ago
> Commonwealth India is part of the Commonwealth. So is Pakistan. The idea that the Commonwealth moves in lockstep is plain silly.
- chrisco255 4y ago
  Sorry, always think of India & Pakistan as different because they were occupied territories as opposed to colonies populated by British & European immigrants.
  - poloniculmov 4y ago
    Only a couple of the African members were never occupied by the British, the rest are all occupied territories.

rayiner 4y ago

This is extremely incorrect. India is buying Russian gas and cooperating on payment networks to bypass American sanctions: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-using-swift-global-payment-system-settle-dollar-trade-with-russia-source-2023-03-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-using-swift-global... The connection between the subcontinent and Russia is longstanding. Socialism was foundational to the post-independence government organization of both India and Bangladesh. My mom grew up reading Russian literature that has been translated into Bangla. Both India and Bangladesh abstained from a UN vote that called for Russia to remove troops from Ukraine: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-explains-why-it-abstained-at-un-vote-on-ukraine-with-3-piercing-questions-101677253567257.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-explains-why... As to China, it is all over India and Bangladesh, loaning money for infrastructure projects, etc. China is building the new subway in Dhaka: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1256874.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1256874.shtml. I had hoped for more alignment of India and Bangladesh with the Anglosphere after the fall of the Soviet Union, but things have absolutely gone in the opposite direction. Russia, China, and India are an almost complete alternative to the west. There is very little that can’t be handled using home grown solutions in one of those three countries, and that list is getting shorter daily.

dralley 4y ago
>India is buying Russian gas There is no expectation that every country in the world cease buying Russian fuels, that's why the price cap was put in place. And India is abiding the price cap. The hysteria about developing countries buying Russian oil/gas is mostly from the media, but so long as Russia is barely hitting breakeven prices then there is little reason for Western governments to care where India or others get their energy from. Europe is cutting their dependence because it was/is actively being used as a weapon against them.
- rayiner 4y ago
  Both India and China have rejected the price cap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_crude_oil_price_cap_sanctions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_crude_oil_price_c.... The price cap drove market prices lower, and India has continued to buy at market price. The reason the price cap was so high was because negotiations in mid-2022 revealed that developing nations wouldn’t go along.

pphysch 4y ago

The five stages of grief. There is an enormous anti-Washington bloc. So what, it isn't perfectly encapsulated in a single organization yet. That's natural due to its rapid growth.

refulgentis 4y ago
Motte and Bailey. This is just vibes
- pphysch 4y ago
  Definitely. The geopolitical environment is very stable and Washington is firmly in control of the unipolar world order. The global USD is thriving. Stage 1: Denial.
  - refulgentis 4y ago
    You should probably look at charts of things people talk about to you
    - pphysch 4y ago
      What?
peppermint_gum 4y ago
>The five stages of grief. You're right but not in the way you think. Russia is desperate to prove they aren't isolated internationally.
- unmole 4y ago
  > Russia is desperate to prove they aren't isolated internationally. BRICS make up 40% of the world's population.
  - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago

lazyninja987 4y ago

[dead]

seizethecheese 4y ago

The argument here misses the point. This BRICS isn’t so much a political block as symbol of diffusing economic power. Since geopolitical power follows economic power, this is a leading indicator of the waning of American hegemony.

lenkite 4y ago

"India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes." Border skirmishes with sticks and fists actually - commanders on both sides firmly respect the "no firearms" rule. The only deaths were in the 2020 flare up. Since then, the recent encounters have been quite literally "body checking" the border with muscle. Yet the current skirmishes and any future skirmishes have not and will not affect ongoing trade and investment. India still has $119 billion trade with China. China is India's top trading partner in 2023. There is also significant Chinese investment in India - Oppo, Vivo, Fosun, etc. Meanwhile Russia continues to be the single largest supplier of crude oil for India, which is converted into petrol and diesel at refineries, for a fifth straight month by supplying more than one-third of all oil India imported. India is ambivalent/negative to Ukraine and generally abstains from all US proposals that are anti-Russian. Ukraine had voted against India several times in the UNSC and also armed Pakistan and this is remembered by the Indian government. Some Americans appear to mistake BRICS as some sort of political/military alliance. It is not - its a trade/economy focused alliance whose founding impetus was the 2008 economic crisis where the world paid the price for bad US economic policies. There is also a movement away from the US dollar to other national currencies in BRICS nations - though India is not a part of this movement - the US is India's second largest trading partner after all.

selimthegrim 4y ago
> Ukraine had voted against India several times in the UNSC and also armed Pakistan and this is remembered by the Indian government. Which is why Imran Khan’s pro Russia position was so stupid
- lenkite 4y ago
  I believe he was looking for cheap oil to kick-start the economy. But Pakistan doesn't have the special refineries that India has to process Russian oil anyways, so he would have been better served to stay silent and do stuff quietly in the background. Unfortunately, he made a fuss and the US subtly engineered his departure. He is now effectively a non-entity.
  - 4y ago

steponlego 4y ago

China and Russia are partners, allies. Are you one of those people who sits there furiously praying they’ll fight WWIII against each other? It’s delusional.

alxlaz 4y ago

Lots of comments here are trying to poke holes in the parent comment, and missing its substance as a consequence. There is, first and foremost, the elephant in the room which everyone ignores because everyone's thinking Russia these days. That elephant is China, which acts as the extremely valuable missing link to G7 economies. China and the G7 group are wholy interdependent, whether they're willing to admit it or not. One without the other, at least at this moment in time, would be Chapter 1 of a dystopian novel about societal collapse. We've had a whiff of that during the supply chain crisis in the pandemic -- and that was just some clogged logistics. Anyone taking this as proof that BRICS is now its own thing that can stand on its own is just as wrong as anyone thinking that G7 is its own thing that can stand on its own. They're not. And any factor that's straining the relation between the two blocs (via China) is not likely to be viewed with wholly favourable eyes by either parties, even though some of them can't acknowledge that publicly due to ideological reasons, or are happy to let it be for as long as it causes more trouble on the other side. Second, lots of the economic activity that happens inside BRICS is decidedly not happening in the "cooperation" side of the cooperation-competition-conflict framework, or within any unreservedly friendly quadrant of any framework. Russia, for instance, is a major supplier for the Indian defense industry not so much because of historical socialist ties, but because it's the only major supplier it can realistically deal with without major restrictions. It has a hot border dispute with China, another hot border dispute with a regional ally (Pakistan) of another major supplier (US and the NATO bloc), and has fought real wars with both in the last sixty years. Russia and China aren't sharing fatherly influence over India and Bangladesh, or over post-Soviet Asia, they're competing for influence in much of it. Just like China and Brazil are competing for regional influence in some of South America, just like China and South Africa are competing for regional influence in some of Africa. Third, people are also forgetting an important lesson from recent history: on the eve of World War II, Franco-German commercial relations were extraordinary. Actually, Germany had excellent trade relations with most of Europe. Most of the arguments about BRICS today readily translate to FIGUC (France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, Czechoslovakia) cca. 1936, including caveats like they're backing opposite parties in some regional conflicts/civil war. Economic interests and common enemies are transitory; geopolitical aspirations are far more durable. This isn't to say that BRICS is "not a real alliance". It is, it's bound by real economic relations, and there is plenty of competition within the G7 bloc as well. However, its potential for global cooperation outside the economic sphere is greatly diminished by the current state of mutual foreign relations, and competition, between its members. BRICS cannot, at least for now, achieve any more than G7 could've achieved back when Germany was trying to widen its military supply sources so as not to depend on France because there was a real chance they might into it over Alsace, the way India is now trying to widen its military supply sources so as not to depend on China or the US because there's a real chance they might get into it over LoCs in Kashmir.

marcosdumay 4y ago

> It's entirely possible that in the future a real anti-western bloc will emerge. But it isn't BRICS. What a bullshit level of US centrism. The BRICS is not an anti-US (and yes, I'm sure you meant US) bloc. It's a pro-middle-income country bloc. There is no reason to align on issues not related to middle-income countries economics.

kamaal 4y ago

>>India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes. As an Indian speaking very frankly India and China are frenemies. There is going to be no major war between these two. Contrary to whatever it looks from a distance, it won't. India and China are very likely to indulge in intense co-operative competition with Russia as an another mediating partner. In many ways this is already the case. I also believe over time a similar equation will emerge between India and Pakistan and China playing the same role as Russia in this case.

Yizahi 4y ago

Anti-"western" block will come and go in droves as long as they are petulant children blocks, built on the contrarianism - "just make everything opposite of what west thinks and does". And since sociopaths who usually come to power with similar ideology are usually incompetent, these blocks and countries will continue to fail like clockwork.

tpoacher 4y ago

Say a term enough times and it gets established by people who repeat it. Like "nanoparticles", or "data science" or "codes". Ironically, by venting about how BRICS is not a thing, you've helped a tiny bit more into making it a thing for people who read your post. That's just how it works.