22 August 2024. The 15th summit of the BRICS is to be held from today, August 22nd to August 24th, in South Africa. The global economic phenomenon decided to extend membership to effectively increase its influence as an organization. Despite the intention, some of the key members are worried about anti-western conduct.
The summit in 2024 is hosted by South Africa and the representative will be Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa. The other representatives are Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Chinese President Xi Jinping and the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi. The Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, will be representing Russia in the conference as President Vladimir Putin avoiding to put South Africa in a dilemma of fulfilling their contradictory duties as the host of this conference and as a member of The Hague-Based International Criminal Court.
Vladimir Putin is avoiding travel to South Africa for the BRICS Summit 2024
President Vladimir Putin has allegedly committed war crimes in Ukraine and faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. The BRICS decided to continue this year’s summit without the presence of Russia’s president in June. However, Putin will be joining the summit virtually. This will be the first BRICS summit to be held in person since 2019. The BRICS group might take an overtly anti-western turn. Which may cause the BRICS to be a new and rejuvenated political and economic figure threatening the US and its allies in world affairs.
The number of interested candidates is greater than 40. Nearly half of the countries have already asked for formal membership. BRICS was initially an economic actor for developing countries. The expansion of this five-nation group has the potential to emerge as a political aspect.
In a televised national address this Sunday, Ramaphosa ensured that South Africa is not going to get involved in the competition to achieve global power. Regardless, the President stated that he would hold his stance in matters of ideology and national interest.
Steps to subvert the influence of US dollars in global trade transactions are going to be discussed at this conference. Which will be beneficial for Russia, whose economy is struggling because of the sanctions that were imposed due to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
China is attempting to assemble a larger group of developing nations in order to increase its influence and support its ambitions to rival the US on the international scene.
Apparently, India, the most populous nation in the group, is upset about both China’s expansion intentions and the more overt political attitude that Beijing has articulated. India wants to make sure that this platform doesn’t just drift into being an anti-Western platform, and there is a risk of that with both Russia and China having specific agendas, according to Prof. Harsh Pant, an international relations expert at the Observer Research Foundation, a thinktank in Delhi.
A “very polarised world” that had been made even more polarised by the Ukraine war, according to Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s ambassador at large for Asia and the Brics, was one of the reasons nations were rushing up to join the organisation. He said that nations were being compelled to choose sides in the conflict. Iran and Venezuela, both subject to sanctions and cut off politically, are two potential new members.
In addition, Russia sees the summit as a chance to cement its partnerships in the developing world, notably in Africa.
