Initially comprising the four nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, BRIC was founded in 2009 as an economic grouping of emerging economies before South Africa was included one year later, turning it into BRICS. The bloc has since expanded by officially adding Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at the beginning of 2024. As such, BRICS+ now represents around 45 percent of the world’s population, 25 percent of global trade, 40 percent of global oil production, 28 percent of the world’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and more than one-third of global GDP in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.
In August 2023, last year’s summit chair, South Africa, confirmed that interest in joining BRICS+ had been expressed by more than 40 countries, including Algeria, Bolivia, Indonesia, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Comoros, Gabon and Kazakhstan. And by February 24, South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor relayed to reporters that 34 countries had formally submitted expressions of interest in joining the bloc, more than 20 of which had actively submitted membership applications. All of this means, therefore, that it is virtually a foregone conclusion that BRICS+ will significantly expand in the coming months and years.
With that in mind, all eyes will be firmly on the Russian city of Kazan from October 22 to 24, where the next BRICS summit will be held, with the rotating presidency being handed to Russia this year. The expansion of membership will almost certainly be discussed and advanced. As for Malaysia, BRICS+ membership could well be confirmed at this meeting. A two-day visit to the country by the minister of foreign affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov, which ended on July 27, reportedly included strong backing being given to Malaysia’s membership aspirations.
“This potential membership holds substantial promise for both nations and underscores our commitment to fostering robust international collaboration,” Anwar Ibrahim noted in a Facebook post regarding the visit. The Malaysian prime minister also confirmed that the two nations explored avenues to enhance bilateral cooperation, with a particular focus on strengthening ties in key areas such as investment and trade, science and technology, agriculture, defence and military, education, and tourism and culture.
Malaysia’s application swiftly follows the news that neighbouring Thailand had also submitted a formal letter requesting to join BRICS+ on June 22. The bloc “represents a south-south cooperative framework which Thailand has long desired to be a part of,” Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs Maris Sangiampongsa told reporters in mid-June, in reference to the Global South, the broad grouping of the world’s developing nations. Other Southeast Asian nations, including Indonesia and Vietnam, have also shown interest in BRICS+ membership, moreover.
Perhaps the most astonishing of all, however, was the revelation in late June that the Republic of Türkiye was seeking BRICS+ membership, with Ankara’s growing frustration over its lack of progress in joining the European Union (EU) reportedly triggering the move. “We have relations and are holding talks, negotiations with the BRICS countries, and they’re also going through an evolution,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan told Habertürk TV. “If the EU had the will to take a step forward, our perspective on certain issues could be different.”
Whether Türkiye’s interest is realistic or simply a bargaining chip being used to reignite talks surrounding its EU membership remains to be seen. Nonetheless, Fidan has heaped praise on BRICS+, suggesting that Türkiye’s membership ambitions—particularly from a country undergoing an economic crisis of its own, with inflation exceeding 70 percent—are indeed genuine. “There is a military alliance within NATO, but an economic alliance has not materialised [with the EU]. Therefore, our search has been underway,” Fidan also remarked. “The different and beautiful thing about BRICS compared to the EU is that it includes all civilisations and races. If it can become a little more institutional, it will produce serious benefits.”
So, why are so many nations now clamouring to join BRICS+? Along with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), many view BRICS+ as the result of efforts made by China and Russia to develop alternative economic frameworks that challenge the existing Western-dominated international order. For many seeking to join the bloc, BRICS+ membership represents part of a new, fairer world order that flies in the face of a financial system led by institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which are widely perceived to be solidly under hegemonic, US-led Western control.
The successes of these relatively new groups are also doing much to dilute the power of Western-led intergovernmental forums such as the G7 (Group of Seven) and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), which almost exclusively comprise advanced, industrialised economies. And with the economic and foreign policies of this band of economies coming under increasing global scrutiny, the search for alternative bodies that are more representative of the ideologies of developing nations is now being pursued with more intensity than ever.
Malaysia’s push to join BRICS+ is partly driven by Anwar Ibrahim’s desire to not only champion cooperation within the Global South but also to dissociate Malaysia from what it and many others see as Western double standards. “Some of us, including people like myself, think that we need to find solutions to the unfair international financial and economic architecture,” former Malaysian Minister of Foreign Affairs Saifuddin Abdullah acknowledged to Bloomberg in a June 21 interview. “So, BRICS would probably be one of the ways to balance some things.”
This year, that frustration is fast reaching its boiling point, with the likes of Israel’s war in Gaza eliciting widespread accusations of abject hypocrisy against the West. On more than one occasion, Anwar Ibrahim vented his anger over the loss of Palestinian lives, confirming that Malaysia and Russia had discussed the pressing need for a permanent ceasefire, immediate humanitarian relief and the recognition of Palestine as a full member of the United Nations.
“Malaysia looks at BRICS not as an alternative but as another complementary multilateral mechanism”, Thomas Daniel, a senior fellow specialising in foreign policy and security studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) in Malaysia, told the South China Morning Post on June 29. Daniel also acknowledged Malaysia’s strong existing ties with founding BRICS members China and India, while the advancement of trade and investment ties with other members, such as Brazil, could be hugely beneficial for its trade-dependent economy.
The sheer weight of economic rewards on offer for those obtaining membership explains, more than any other factor, the global frenzy to sign up, with the gains in trading volumes amongst BRICS+ members already driving considerable economic development. According to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the share of global trade in goods transacted among the group’s members more than doubled to 40 percent from 2002 through 2022.
“Intra-BRICS trade increased by 56 percent between 2017 and 2022 to reach $614.8 billion as of 2022,” the Taihe Institute also reported recently. “With the addition of major oil-producing countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, and nations like Egypt that have a strategic geographic location as well as critical transport infrastructure, trade among BRICS Plus countries continued to grow,” the Beijing-based think tank added. “It is reasonable to project that, given the large population, growing middle class, and widening market within the bloc, intra-BRICS Plus trade will see further growth.”
Taihe also noted a significant surge in Russia’s trade with BRICS+ nations following the impositions of Western sanctions against Moscow in response to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, with exports of oil and gas to China and India growing considerably. China’s exports of industrial machinery, consumer electronics and automobiles have also surged.
Indeed, the rush to BRICS+ is also about countries seeking to avoid the painful impacts of sanctions and instead access the multitude of economic benefits on offer from BRICS+, including development finance, trade and investment. A May 2023 report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) found that more than one in four countries is subject to economic sanctions by the United Nations or Western governments and that 29 percent of global GDP is produced in sanctioned countries, up from only 4 percent in the 1960s.
Among the most heavily sanctioned countries is Venezuela; indeed, an April 2019 CEPR report found that broad economic sanctions implemented by the US administration under former President Donald Trump since August 2017 had led to at least 40,000 additional deaths from 2017 to 2018. “The sanctions are depriving Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, medical equipment, food, and other essential imports,” said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of CEPR and co-author of the report. “This is illegal under US and international law, and treaties that the US has signed. Congress should move to stop it.”
With the United Socialist Party of Venezuela’s leader, Nicholás Maduro, having just won a third term as president in the country’s July 28 elections, the heavily sanctioned administration will undoubtedly ramp up its desire for Venezuela to become a BRICS member, having frequently stated its intentions in the past. “I hope that at the summit in Moscow after a great victory on July 28, Venezuela will enter the BRICS door as a permanent and full-fledged member of the integration from South America,” Maduro said in a televised interview in May.
“We are actively working on this. Venezuela is on its way to organically joining new global powers,” the president also noted, adding that “BRICS is a new world, without hegemony, a new bloc of power that [former Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez dreamed of.”