Tag Archive for: BRICS

Joining BRICS, Indonesia sticks with multi-alignment strategy

Indonesia’s decision to join BRICS is no strategic pivot but a continuation of its multi-alignment foreign policy. However, Indonesia will need to navigate internal BRICS dynamics while maintaining ties with the West and its leadership role in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Although framed domestically as a step forwards in strengthening economic growth through South-South cooperation, the move is leverage in its dealings with the West and preserves Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s approach of ‘friends to all, enemy to none’. Having long participated in BRICS summits as an observer, Indonesia’s formal admission in early 2025 aligns with its commitment to equilibrium through multi-alignment, shown through a parallel application to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

As the first Southeast Asian nation to join BRICS, Indonesia’s membership reinforces the group’s claim of representing the Global South. The move has been welcomed by both the current BRICS chair, Brazil, and China in statements promoting Indonesia’s potential contributions to reforming global governance and fostering South-South cooperation. Yet, the narrative of BRICS as a champion of South-South cooperation is debatable, as members such as China and Russia are hardly considered as Global South countries.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs justified joining BRICS as being grounded in principles of equality, mutual respect and sustainable development, but it also thanked Russia as the 2024 BRICS chair for its support during the membership process. This highlights the geopolitical undertones of Jakarta’s decision, given Russia’s strained relations with the West. Additionally, BRICS has positioned itself as a counterweight to Western dominance, also including China and Iran as members.

While Indonesia insists it remains non-aligned, BRICS membership could complicate its relationships with the United States and EU. If tensions between BRICS and the West intensify, Indonesia will need to manage its role carefully to avoid undermining its broader foreign policy objectives.

For example, BRICS’s ambition to create a new currency for trading among members may undermine the US dollar’s dominance of international trade and subsequently irritate Washington, as BRICS members make up 40 percent of the global economy. Still, de-dollarisation remains more of an aspiration than policy for now, as members still heavily depend on the dollar for trade. Moreover, the return of US President Donald Trump, who has threatened a 100 percent tariff on BRICS members over such initiatives, makes the realisation of the grouping’s currency unrealistic.

Despite tensions, joining BRICS aligns with Indonesia’s interest to engage with non-traditional markets. Economic opportunities within BRICS are significant but not without caveats. Collaborations could facilitate investments in infrastructure, technology and public health, supporting Prabowo’s domestic agenda. Partnerships with Brazil and Russia could enhance food and energy security, while China and India may provide technological expertise.

However, such initiatives as the BRICS Technology Transfer Center Network, which was proposed by China in 2018, raise concerns about intellectual property protection and equitable benefit-sharing. It is unclear to what extent the arrangements would protect Indonesia’s intellectual property and that of other countries. Jakarta must ensure these arrangements safeguard its interests to maximise the benefits of membership.

Beyond tension with the West, BRICS also faces internal challenges. Different and sometimes contradicting national interests, such as those between China and India, often undermine the bloc’s cohesion and collective action. This may challenge Indonesia’s ability to influence the group’s agenda without being carried away by the power contest within.

While Indonesia’s middle-power status has made it an effective de-facto leader within ASEAN, BRICS presents a more complex dynamic, requiring skilled diplomacy to promote inclusivity while avoiding alienating the West.

Indonesia’s history of independence and non-alignment offers some advantages in navigating global tension. Jakarta’s pursuit of membership in both BRICS and the OECD shows its multi-alignment strategy, engaging with multiple platforms, regardless of their political circumstances. This flexibility may allow Indonesia to benefit from BRICS while maintaining strong ties with its traditional partners.

Nevertheless, Indonesia’s engagement with BRICS could raise concerns about its leadership role in ASEAN as it risks stretching its resources too thin. As Southeast Asia’s largest economy, Indonesia has traditionally driven ASEAN-led initiatives. While BRICS membership may enhance Jakarta’s global leverage, it risks diverting resources from regional commitments. Indonesia must ensure its participation complements, rather than undermines, ASEAN’s collective interests.

Ultimately, Indonesia’s success within BRICS depends on its ability to meaningfully contribute while safeguarding its national interests. Beyond being a symbolic addition, Indonesia must leverage its position as a regional leader to advocate practical and actionable goals. This includes promoting inclusivity within BRICS, shaping its agenda toward global economic equitability and ensuring it complements ASEAN commitments. With strategic vision and skilled diplomacy, Indonesia can use BRICS to advance its interests while contributing to a more balanced global order.

BRICS is hardly a new fulcrum of world politics

One question that 2025 may begin to answer is whether the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) is becoming the new center of power in world politics. Now that it has added new members (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates) and come to represent 45 percent of the world population, some believe that it is consolidating the (misleadingly named) Global South and posing a serious challenge to US and Western power. But I remain skeptical of such claims.

When Jim O’Neill, then the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, coined the ‘BRIC’ acronym in 2001, his aim was simply to identify the four emerging economies that were most likely to dominate global economic growth by 2050. But the label soon acquired a political relevance. BRIC became an informal diplomatic grouping at the 2006 United Nations General Assembly and then a formal organisation in 2009, with the first BRIC Summit. Hosted in Russia, the focus then, as it is now, was on advancing a multipolar world order. At the end of the following year, the group got its ‘S’ when South Africa joined.

A Wall Street asset class evolved into an international organisation partly because it aligned with Russia’s and China’s own aspirations to lead the developing world. The BRICS 16th summit in Russia in October 2024 was the first to include its new members. (Saudi Arabia has not yet decided whether to accept the group’s invitation to join, and Argentina’s new government declined.) Some 36 national leaders attended, as did representatives from many international organisations, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and Turkey used the occasion to present its own application for membership.

The 2024 summit focused on fostering ties across the Global South and building a multipolar world, with Russian President Vladimir Putin using the occasion to demonstrate his global diplomatic relevance despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

With more countries showing an interest in joining, it looks like the BRICS could indeed present itself as a leader of the resistance to the US-dominated international order. Some even see it as the successor to the Cold War-era Non-Aligned Movement, whose members refused to choose between the United States and the Soviet Union. But while NAM had a shared interest in resisting the US, it did not have Russia and China as founding members.

In any case, the BRICS is unlikely to succeed in formally organising the so-called Global South. Not only do its largest and most important members—China, India and Russia—all lie north of the equator, but the three are competing for leadership.

Russia and China do have a common interest in countering what they see as an American threat, and they have declared an ‘alliance without limits’. But such slogans mask major differences in their strategic perspectives. While Russia took vast swaths of territory from China in the 19th century, when the Qing dynasty was weak, China’s economy is now 10 times the size of Russia’s. Both countries are vying for influence in Central Asia, and China is uneasy about Russia’s recruitment of its neighbor North Korea to fight in Ukraine.

An even more important limit on the BRICS as an organisation is the rivalry between China and India, which is now the world’s most populous country. Although China is much wealthier than India, it is experiencing demographic decline (like Russia), while India’s population and workforce continue to grow.

Moreover, China and India share a disputed boundary in the Himalayas, where their forces have clashed repeatedly, and the situation is further complicated by China’s traditional friendship with Pakistan. In fact, an abiding concern about China is one reason why India participates in the BRICS in the first place. While it avoids formal alliances, it has also stepped up its participation in the Quad (whose other members are the US, Japan and Australia) for the same reason.

Rather than making the BRICS stronger, the admission of new members merely imports more rivalries. Egypt and Ethiopia are locked in a dispute over a dam that Ethiopia is building on the Nile River, and Iran has long-standing disputes with the UAE and prospective member Saudi Arabia. Far from making the BRICS more effective, these new intra-organisational rivalries will hamper its efforts. The Group of 77 developing countries has even more members, and it is chronically limited by internal divisions.

At their 2024 summit, BRICS+ discussed matters such as economic and security cooperation, promotion of cultural exchanges, and joint development projects focused on infrastructure and sustainability. But such talk usually does not yield significant results. In 2014, the group established the New Development Bank, which is headquartered in Shanghai; but the institution has had only modest results to date.

Likewise, the group’s stated intention of avoiding the dollar and clearing more of its members’ bilateral trade in their own currencies has made only limited headway. Any serious attempt to replace the dollar as a global reserve currency would require China to back the yuan with deep, flexible capital markets and the rule of law—and those conditions are nowhere close to being met.

So, what is the BRICS good for? As a means of escaping diplomatic isolation, it is certainly useful to Russia. As a diplomatic device for projecting leadership of the developing world, it also has been useful to China. As a channel through which to counterbalance China, it has its uses for India. And as a modest stage for touting national development, it has sometimes been useful to Brazil and South Africa. But do these functions make it a new fulcrum of world politics? I think not.