Global Affairs Expert Webinar: BRICS and Rising Power Alliances
Mihaela Papa, director of the BRICS Lab and director of research and principal research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies, leads the conversation on BRICS and rising power alliances.
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Speaker
Mihaela Papa
Director, BRICS Lab; Director of Research and Principal Research Scientist, Center for International Studies
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Presider
Irina A. Faskianos
Vice President, National Program and Outreach
Council on Foreign Relations
Transcript
FASKIANOS: Welcome to today’s session of the Winter/Spring 2026 Global Affairs Expert Webinar series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR.
Today’s discussion is on the record and the video and transcript will be available on education.CFR.org, if you would like to share the materials with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.
We are delighted to have Mihaela Papa with us to discuss BRICS and rising power alliances. Dr. Papa is director of research and principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for International Studies, where she leads the BRICS Labs and focuses on negotiation strategy, coalition building, and the role of rising powers in global governance and climate transitions. Previously, she served as senior fellow at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, cofounded and led the Rising Power Alliances Project, and held leadership roles at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Dr. Papa has published widely on BRICS, sustainable development, diplomacy, and global governance in leading journals and outlets, such as International Affairs, Global Environmental Politics and Foreign Affairs. And her commentary has appeared on CNN, Bloomberg, and the BBC.
So welcome, Mihaela. We really appreciate your being with us today. I thought you could begin by giving us an overview of BRICS, how BRICS has evolved since inception, what are the core objectives today, and how the coalition of rising powers is shaping global governance and international negotiations.
PAPA: Thank you so much. I’m delighted to be here, and honored to be invited. So, first of all, maybe just to start with a broad overview of the group. The BRICS group is one of the most—one of the most ambitious entities currently that we have in global governance. BRICS is a negotiation campaign and the strategic partnership that seeks to reform the international system. And it started as a self-standing institution in 2009. And the idea from the start was to have more democratic and just multipolar order to reform global economic and financial institutions, and also serve both emerging economies and developing countries. And the BRICS as a group is actually a form of an informal group, informal intergovernmental institution, that has regular meetings, that has some shared norms and principles, and also does not have a secretariat.
So, we are looking at it from an international relations perspective as a very low level of institutionalization, but at the same time, it created an international organization in 2014. And then it is, in a way, a hybrid—not fully informal, but also actually has progeny.
What’s interesting about BRICS in the current debate is whether it can actually reform the system, and to what extent it can exercise political influence. Because it is not a lot—there has been a lot of debate about rising powers, and especially focused on the rise of China, the rise of India, thinking about their economic influence. But economic rise does not necessarily translate into political influence, also into collective leadership, and collective influence in the multilateral system of 193 states.
So, to what extent actually can BRICS make a difference? BRICS is especially interesting in the U.S. context because there is no common bipartisan policy toward it. So, for example, the Biden administration did not consider it as a threat and as an entity, and develop policies toward it as an entity. While the Trump administration took a completely different approach, with threatening BRICS what will happen if they move away from the dollar. So, in the larger scheme of things, BRICS is considered a rising power coalition. Rising powers have been aligning for a very long time. So, for example, we have seen Russia-India-China alignment and collaboration to geopolitical—coordinating in the geopolitical context. We have seen India-Brazil-South Africa cooperation to have greater global voice, reform international organizations. And we have also seen, like, coalitions of rising powers. So, Brazil, South Africa, India, and China, for example, operating together in climate negotiations.
So, what actually distinguishes BRICS is that it has gone further in terms of coordination, and in terms of impact, and in terms of also mobilization of other countries. Currently, there are eleven members and ten partner countries. So, starting from the original BRICS countries, BRIC, in 2009, then South Africa in 2011, and then two more expansions, 2024, 2025. So now, there is, like, this larger body. The question in terms of rising powers shaping—reshaping global governance is the question of how to—like, how they can impact status quo, like, the way diplomacy operates. And that is not necessarily a question of their interaction with the United States. So for example, given that these countries are very powerful by themselves, they are, like, very populous, large economies. So, even if they do policy coordination, that can already affect the United States in terms of its own policy space and what it plans to do in global governance space.
But, of course, the interesting part, from a negotiation perspective, is how rising powers are interacting with so-called older established powers, and what kind of institutions they’re trying to change, and how. So overall, when we think about their impact in the system, the question is, do they actually have output? Because informal institutions are known to be so-called lightweight, like, talk shops. And they’re not necessarily expected to have major impact. BRICS has been quite different, in the sense that it showed that it can create alternative institutions to the existing institutions. So, in a way, when it tries to negotiate, let’s say, within the World Bank or within the International Monetary Fund, there is always this possibility, if we don’t get the right deal, we have an alternative institution we can invest in.
So, currently BRICS has—actually, it established a new development bank that had $42.9 billion in approved financing. It has—the group itself has around, actually, over 180 mechanisms. And it already has done quite a lot on the political front in terms of enabling some countries, like Russia, not to be diplomatically isolated, but actually to continue operating even after the war in Ukraine. So, I think I would stop here. I think what’s interesting, with India’s presidency, BRICS is a summitry-based mechanism. So currently, India has a presidency. And it is a system of rotating presidencies. And India has renamed BRICS to say Building for Resilience, Innovation and Cooperation and Sustainability. So, because it is a little bit difficult with all of the additional countries that joined BRICS to find, like, a joint acronym. And especially now when the members themselves are, like, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran. Saudis are still a question mark, but they are now treated as a member by India, and the United Arab Emirates. So, I should probably stop here. And I’m looking forward to the discussion.
FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Let’s go to all of you now for your questions.
(Gives queuing instructions.)
OK, so our first question is from Patrick Duddy.
Q: Good morning, or good afternoon. I’m a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. And I’m now on the faculty at Duke University.
I really have two questions. The first has to do with your comment that the BRICS can create alternatives to existing institutions. And I would, of course, be very interested in any examples you could cite of where that has happened. And then the other question I noticed, why do you think people outside say the BRICS themselves should see the organization, per se, as anything other than effectively anti-Western or anti-sort of U.S. and Western Europe? Because most of those countries are, in fact, at odds either with the United States directly or collectively, and perhaps sometimes economically, with the developed economies of Europe and North America.
PAPA: Thank you so much for the questions. Maybe I should start with the second one first. The very fact that BRICS is trying to reform the system already puts it in a bit of a tension with the United States, because if the argument is that it is for diversification of leadership, and in a way less of U.S. dominance, it’s already, in a way, creating tensions with the United States. That being said, when you look at the overall cooperation, it happens on issue-based level. Which means that BRICS covers very many issues. Like there are—the 180 mechanisms I mentioned, it means that BRICS coordinates, like, parliamentary cooperation, customs cooperation, fashion, media, trade, all different areas, development finance. Which means that out of 180 areas—and I mean we did the BRICS Convergence Index to actually see which areas are the most competitive, where BRICS is actually offering rival positions. And, of course, that depends on which government is in DC.
So, for example, overall, we have not seen in data that BRICS is anti-U.S. across overall positions. There are actually a lot of BRICS work—BRICS does a lot of work on fighting tuberculosis, on air pollution. Some of these areas are the areas that the United States really cares about. So, there are some issues, though, like moving away from the dollar, turning to local currencies, WTO questions, questions about WMDs, that are more sensitive. Especially if there is, for example, the Trump administration in power, versus the Biden administration was more aligned. The Trump administration, there have been more divergent positions. That being said, the Trump administration is the one that’s more open toward the U.S. not being the ultimate superpower, and accepting multipolarity, and accepting more of a hemispheric influence. So, in that sense, the Trump administration format is more aligned—of what the international system would look like—is more aligned with BRICS.
That being said, moving to the alternative institutions question, I think there are—in the overarching debate, there have been two institutions in particular. So, one is so-called, like, the New Development Bank, which is like a mini-World Bank. And the idea is to have their own bank to understand what they want to fund by themselves. And that funding for big infrastructure, for example, for more support for different types of projects, project-based conditionality rather than policy-based conditionality. So, these are some of the examples for what BRICS would like to pursue in a different institution than the World Bank. So, for example, you can say, like, oh yes, these countries rise, so the additional funding would go to the World Bank. But actually, additional funding might go to their own institution.
Another institution that was under question was the so-called mini-IMF, Contingent Reserve Arrangement. And that Contingent Reserve Arrangement was created, but it actually hasn’t really been implemented and operationalized. And that was supposed to be, like, this mini-IMF, but still linked to the IMF, for helping countries with balance of payments. So currently, there is also a big debate on alternative financial infrastructure, and to what extent can BRICS build internally their own financial infrastructure so that they are not dependent on Western financial infrastructure? So, for example, if a country is cut off SWIFT, that it has, like, a backup plan, and the dollar cannot be weaponized so that it’s less affected or not affected by sanctions, not affected by freezing of reserves, and so on.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to take the next question from Elizabeth Willetts.
Q: Hi. Thank you, Mihaela. This has been really interesting. I am an independent expert on planetary health. And I see from the chat that I’m not the only one interested in health issues.
And a question I had is last year, 2025, BRICS came together—the health ministers have been coming together, and they produced an instrument, a declaration, with intent to focus on certain issues, including social determinants of health, environmental determinants of health. And also have produced, preceding that, some indication that they are looking to align medical associations, nursing associations, and these sorts of structures. As I read this material, I’m just wondering, from your perspective, where you think this sector-level push might go, or other sector-level pushes might go? And how practical is that really rolling out at this stage?
PAPA: Thank you so much for the question. So, health cooperation was one of the very first cooperation areas that BRICS identified where they wanted to make a difference. Currently, BRICS has been working across different issue areas. Basically we’re looking at health policy coordination across areas. Tuberculosis has actually been one of the areas which got a lot of attention throughout the evolution of health cooperation. They have been building the Vaccine Research Center and trying to see—during COVID especially—they have been trying to see how they can cooperate in health diplomacy and support each other.
But the most recent, I see the socially determined diseases, that was the most recent effort. One aspect of this cooperation is that what we see first is usually some framework and strategic action plan, and then policy coordination, and then afterwards some more concrete output. So, at this stage, health cooperation would be, like, at this more, like, framework level. But then what we are going to see next is whether there is a pickup in terms of country specialists from each country, and what are they going to do there? So, it is very early to judge, right, because the socially determined diseases—like, the framework was just adopted. So now, the question will be whether we see, like, an increase in institutionalization, increase in meetings, increase in production of different reports, and knowledge exchange, and joint research, and then moving into that direction. And that’s the traditional way that things move in kind of the BRICS universe.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to take a written question from Katie Laatikainen, who is a professor of international relations and director of Levermore Global Scholars at Adelphi University: There’s been a lot of discussion about the shift toward informal minilateralism in an increasingly contested geopolitical context. Minilaterals are seen as more efficient and also perhaps a reaction to the lack of reform making way for greater participation by rising powers in existing multilateral institutions. This is particularly the case in relation to Bretton Woods institutions. Yet, will it be possible for BRICS-derived institutions, such as the NDB and the CRA, to really challenge existing institutions? Don’t the BRICS initiatives still rely on norms that have been established by Bretton Woods?
PAPA: So, I would agree with, like, this statement about the rise of minilaterals. This is really proven across literature that there is—there has been growth in minilateral cooperation. And the reason being is that a lot of multilateral processes have been deadlocked, and minilateralism gives this like a little entrepreneurial push, gives it more flexibility to existing cooperation. And it also is not binding, which means that countries can withdraw at any time. And they can just start a lot of different bodies and then see which one works, and then move with it.
I think the question whether BRICS, as a multilateral—minilateral can become bigger, is twofold. One aspect of it is that it actually tries to work within the system. It tries to build some areas of the UN system and reform them. It tries to work through international financial institutions that are Bretton Woods institutions. So, for example, every single BRICS declaration mentions the willingness to reform global financial institutions. And here, we are talking Bretton Woods. So now, India especially, that is chairing BRICS right now, it has been very actively advocating for reforming the IMF, International Monetary Fund. And especially in terms of updating the distribution of quota shares. And given—and this is not only, like, a functional operational issue, but it’s also the issue of legitimacy and voice, and the way how to prepare these institutions for the next stage when—as these countries are rising.
In terms of the New Development Bank, whether it can become bigger, I think, it has—like, compared to other banks, like Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, it hasn’t been growing as rapidly. And now, we see that there are more countries that want to join. So, that’s an open question. I would not consider this institution as in some way challenging or confronting or, like, you know, threatening the United States in any way, because the development finance needs are real. They are far bigger than what World Bank can provide, what the New Development Bank can provide. So, in that sense, one can look at it, like, the more the merrier. If BRICS wants to invest in development finance versus something else, that’s a good thing for a lot of people who are accepting these projects.
I think the bigger question is—when we look at Russia’s narratives in particular—is that Russia does not know—does not believe, and shares with others, that the Western system—Western-led system can be saved, or can be reformed. So, in Russia’s narratives, the core of the future system should be BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And the argument is made that that is the world majority. And that world majority needs to be the core of the system, while the West would be the periphery in Russia’s vision. So, that’s not the vision of all of the BRICS countries. And some of the BRICS countries are really eager. Like especially India, Brazil, and South Africa have all been eager to reform the UN Security Council to work within the system. So, it very much depends on whose presidency is—like, who is the president championing BRICS, because agendas differ from country to country.
Also, BRICS has expanded to currently have so many members. So, thinking about any institution that doubles in size, it’s very difficult to get it going. In terms of consensus building. Consensus is the ultimate rule. So, you cannot make a decision unless there is consensus. And currently, with the expanded membership, consensus building has become more difficult. So, in a way, one can say, yes, there are so many members, it shows that there is a lot of buy-in for BRICS ideas, BRICS visions. But also, the fear of missing out. If they are reforming the system, just coming—being with them to see, like, what’s your own position in the system? But at the same time, you have this expansion of the group that makes any consensus building more difficult. And to top it off is the currently the countries in militarized conflict, with Iran attacking United Arab Emirates, and then the group actually trying to produce something concrete together while two members are in active conflict.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to go next to Jack Galligan. Accept the unmute prompt and state your affiliation.
Q: Hello. My name is Jack Galligan. I am a master’s student in international relations at Vistula University in Poland.
So, I had a question regarding your opinion. So, I read an article recently written by a Chinese international relations specialist of India, and he was discussing how India was quite excited, actually, when Trump was initially reelected, but they have been—you know, relations between United States and India in Trump’s second term have taken quite a down tilt. So, my question is, do you—do you think that this, the way that Trump has handled the relationship with India, sort of taking them from what used to be quite close allies to now sort of keeping them at arm’s length, is a good way to go about it, considering the United States relations with the rest of BRICS, which is sometimes rocky?
PAPA: I mean, when we look at the Biden administration, Biden administration is really heavily invested in India relationship. And especially thinking about the Indo-Pacific strategy. And when we look at, like, how far the United States has gone to accommodate India and India’s different priorities, that’s definitely different than the Trump administration. So, India is very famous for its multi-alignment thinking, for strategic autonomy. And basically, what was a bit of a surprise, especially in the U.S. circles, was when India decided that BRICS could accept and would accept Iran as member. And in a way, when we come to the Trump administration, Trump administration looks less at India as an ally, but looks more at United States strategic autonomy and its own multi-alignment based on, like, U.S. own interests.
So, I think the question also is whether we would assume that a different treatment of India would result in different India’s behavior. And one interesting aspect is the—especially this debate about moving away from the dollar. And here, we can see that India was, for a very long time, almost, like, a veto player within BRICS, and very pro-dollar. And currently, if we look at India’s chairship, it’s actually India’s central bank that is promoting the initiatives to interlink CBDCs and actually move forward with monetary coordination. So, on the one hand, we see that, like, there has been a change in India’s behavior. But it’s also the question to what extent the United States was willing to accommodate different aspects of India’s own positioning toward BRICS. Because it’s not that India ever told the United States, oh, we are leaving BRICS, or we will veto Iran, or, you know.
So, what Trump administration did is almost say, like, we don’t like the way the whole setup works. So, let’s reset the entire relations. And let’s see how to create more leverage. And, of course, when you try to reset, when you create more leverage, not everybody likes what you do with the leverage and how you threaten and coerce. And basically, the India-U.S. relationship has found itself in this, like, bind. And India is moving forward with BRICS but still, in a way, stays truthful to this strategic autonomy and the relationship with the U.S. But I fully agree that the level of the relationship right now is not really reflective of the strength of ties that existed before.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to take the next question from a political science class at the University of Minnesota. I think the professor is Tanisha Fazal: You mentioned BRICS countries negotiating together on climate. Could you please say more? What has happened? And to what extent has it been formalized? And how does BRICS manage the diversity of regime types among its members? Are there any efforts to promote certain regime types, or do they just sidestep this issue?
PAPA: In terms of climate change, I think that’s an interesting question, because for a very long time, BRICS would say, like, climate leadership would need to sit with the industrialized countries and think about cumulative emissions and responsibility for cumulative emissions by industrialized countries. So that has been, in a way, like, a paradox, because BRICS was, like, oh, let’s diversify leadership in every single aspect of the international system. Let’s reform, upgrade, modernize, change all the institutions so that BRICS have a greater role. And climate was this one area where the leadership was fine and the institutions worked. But there was not enough funding and implementation. What’s interesting, in 2025, is that that part has changed. So, what we see now is that BRICS came out with a BRICS leadership agenda. And that leadership agenda has a whole range of topics from the joint framework for thinking about climate finance, carbon accounting, intellectual property for climate tech. Then, links between—BRICS signed the Carbon Markets Partnership. Then we are looking at links between climate, trade, and sustainable development.
So overnight, under Brazilian leadership, the group has almost, like, populated the institutional universe on climate. And but the whole movement toward more ambitious climate agenda started during Russia’s presidency, which is interesting because during Russia’s presidency was when Carbon Markets Partnership was signed. There are two points here. In a way, these countries are oriented toward each other. They are all very against Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and are trying to rethink how to respond to this, EU regulation that makes the cost of compliance and the question of exports to EU countries more challenging. So in a way, there is this external pressure that BRICS are—BRICS are faced with.
At the same time, the expansion of the group has created the group—has turned the group into the club of majority emitters, because if you put together the carbon dioxide emissions of all of the BRICS members, they are now over 50 percent. Which means that they are more of part of the problem than they were before. And at the same time, if you do believe in international law and its power, there is much clearer guidance on the state obligations in the context of climate change. So, there are different external pressures where BRICS are trying to—as BRICS members and at the group level—are trying to position themselves as parts of the solution. And Brazil has, from the get-go, been very much—like, wanted to brand itself as green BRICS. So in a way, this is Brazil’s contribution to the group.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to go next to Rita Kiki Edozie, who has raised her hand.
Q: Thank you, Irina. And thank you, Mihaela.
I think you answered part of my question already, but I’ll present it anyway. I was hoping that you could speak to the policy dimensions of BRICS from a de-dollarization point of view. This concerted effort, I think, for BRICS to move away from, you know, the dollar, and even float an alternative currency. And I was wondering if you could speak to that in the context of Iran joining as a BRICS member. Recently I think it was 2024. And the context of the geopolitical maneuverings in the current war, with Iran threatening, at least, to, you know, I think, float the yuan, I think it was, for passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So, anyway, just, you know, sort of the geopolitical maneuverings, you know, and really the policy posturing of BRICS in an effort to restructure the global economy to more, what they say is, equity, or towards the Global South. Thank you.
PAPA: Thank you. So, this is a very interesting question in terms of what is actually happening as a trend. And if we look at the dollar dominance, dollar dominance is very strong. So, when we look at whether the foreign exchange transactions, dollar is a dominant currency in 88 percent of transactions. And if we look at the reserves, we are looking at around, like, 59 percent share of global foreign exchange reserves. So, that’s kind of the ground level, that dollar is so dominant that it is very difficult to either replace it or find an alternative, especially because there’s a reason. It’s easy to use. There is store of value. It’s very, very easy to understand why dollar is dominant.
But at the same time, the movement to, in a way, move away from the dollar started even after the financial crisis. So, that was one of the first agendas that we’ve seen discussed in BRICS. But it did not take as much emphasis all the way until, well, when we look at the evolution of cooperation, until, actually, Russia was under sanctions. And Russia was the one really championing move away from the dollar. But that being said, it’s not only the countries that are under sanctions, like whether we look at Russia or Iran. We are talking about countries, all of the countries, that do want to increase the use of local currencies. There was in 2023 a debate about using joint BRICS currency—potentially developing a joint BRICS currency. And interestingly, it was President Lula that suggested that BRICS could go the euro way, so potentially developing their own joint currency.
But what has been seen over time is that none of these countries really are eager to have—to have their currency replaced. But it’s more of a question, what can be, like, an alternative currency in addition in very specific areas of financial life. So, we are not talking about, like, the BRICS moving away from their own currencies. And even, like, China is very much interested in internationalizing yuan, developing its own financial markets further. So, this currency debate has been going on in terms of how to best organize themselves whether in New Development Bank lending in non-dollar currencies, whether thinking about how not to be dependent on SWIFT, how to develop, like, BRICS equivalent to financial infrastructure, but also how to use technology. So, the BRICS Bridge would be modeled after mBridge from the Bank of International Settlements. And that would actually enable BRICS not to act—to use different systems, and not necessarily to agree to a single currency.
So, this debate has been going on. The biggest difference I’ve seen over the past two years was that in BRICS declarations, the finance minister, central bankers are supposed to actually work on monetary coordination and report to the rest of the group on monetary coordination. And we also see that the potential mechanisms are laid out by name in declarations. So it is, like, a thing to work on for the group and thing to focus on for the group. And that was not the case, let’s say, three, four years ago. So, another aspect, BRICS is supposed to reach consensus on every aspect of its activity to move forward with output.
But there is a very clear statement in declaration in Kazan Declaration in 2024 that monetary coordination can be opt-in. So, it can be voluntary. Which means that we could envision a multitrack process, where some countries move forward and other countries stay behind, like the way we had with Europe where not all of the countries of the European Union actually adopted euro, but that did not—those who are naysayers did not prevent those who want to move faster, to move faster. And this is one trend that I have been seeing, especially in the monetary coordination.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to take the next question from Steve Shinkel, who’s a military professor at the Naval War College: You described how the BRICS can negate, reduce the power of the dollar/Western economic sanctions. Do you foresee the BRICS developing the capability for their own sanction regime? How do the BRICS view human rights sanctions, such as with Iran—outside the current conflict—especially with China and Russia being cornerstones of the BRICS?
PAPA: So, what’s interesting here is the fact that if there is one issue that all BRICS agree on, and have always agreed on, is that they’re anti-sanctions. So, if you have sanctions on any of other BRICS countries, or even if you impose sanctions on another country, you are not allowed to be part of BRICS. So, for example, in the membership criteria, and in all of the declarations, are very much against the—they call it coercive—unilateral coercive measures. And let’s say, if you have sanctions on Russia, if you want to become part of—member of BRICS, Russia would veto you.
So, I do not anticipate that that BRICS themselves will go the sanctions route, because that would kind of completely undermine their entire narrative that they have been—they have been pushing. That being said, what I said—what I see is that they have been trying more on the conflict resolution side to do this, like, mediation behind the scenes, rather than completely ignoring conflicts and pretending they don’t exist, because—and I would—I would see more, like, for example, they have these Sherpas and Sherpa mechanisms. I would see more, like, that part developing further, rather than them using economic statecraft in the form of sanctions.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to go next to a raised hand from Marcelo Rodriguez at the University of Arizona.
Q: Hi, everyone. Thank you for this really informative webinar. So, I’m a professor and librarian at the University of Arizona College of Law.
And I wanted to ask you your thoughts on the next expansion of the BRICS, because as far as I—as far as I remember, the first expansion brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm in terms of how ambitious this list of countries was going to be. However, I think it’s important also to sort of remember the obstacles. And I’m thinking, for example, of Milei in Argentina that withdrew from the invitation. And I believe also Algeria withdrew at some point. And there were some issues even with Saudi Arabia fully becoming a member. So, I wanted to know if those, I guess, obstacles sort of changed the conversation in how ambitious BRICS wanted to be in expanding and adding more countries. Thank you so much.
PAPA: It’s interesting very much that you mentioned Algeria, because Algeria was, before the 2023, 2024, like, expansion cycle, one of the most active countries. Really pursued, really wanted to join, and did not end up joining and being selected. So, expansion has been very delicate, because sometimes—when we look at the first expansion, like, from BRIC, like, Brazil, Russia, India, China, to South Africa, South Africa was actually doing the negotiation, campaigning, like, how—like, basically pitching why it should be part of BRICS. But when we look at 2023-2024, it’s actually the BRICS countries themselves from within recruiting other members, engaging, inviting. And especially because China was the one championing expansion since 2017. So, it took China a very long time to get other BRICs members to say yes to expansion.
Which means that I think the key problem to future expansion right now lies in the fact that currently the members still have not fully adapted to the new environment. And it’s not really clear how BRICS will engage partners. So, a lot needs to happen to manage the current membership, that is somehow in a way of thinking about future expansion. Another argument anti-expansion—the argument for expansion has always been trade. And so, let’s say, for example, grains trade. BRICS wants to create this BRICS Grains Initiative. And if you look at, like, who they added, they added countries that are grain importers. So in a way, the trade asymmetries that existed have been somewhat ameliorated. So, for the expansion to move forward, the question is, who will—like, how will BRICS gain from it? Not only—like, whether politically, it would be feasible. Because to get a new country in, you should not be vetoed. None of the existing countries should veto the new country.
So, that would be—like, from my perspective, it’s more, like, what is the economic benefit? Because if BRICS operates as a club and wants to keep even the countries it currently has interested, engaged, effective, what will be this unique economic benefit that these countries can actually enjoy? And how can you set up a system where—whether it’s through economic initiative, whether it’s through, like, connection with New Development Bank—where the countries can actually see a return on investment in terms of being—participating in a lot of these different bodies? And I think that will in a way, determine—(laughs)—where BRICS goes next. But at this stage, it’s quite messy to even accommodate the current members.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to take the next question, a written question, from an international studies undergraduate class from Far Eastern University in Manila: We would like to hear more about the current and future cooperation between BRICS and ASEAN, especially in terms of economic opportunities.
PAPA: So, that’s interesting. And I know Manila is not yet in BRICS, right? So, ASEAN is a very big, big organization that has very strong history and legacy of very interesting initiatives, especially in the context of sustainable development. ASEAN, we’ve seen Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam become partners. And Indonesia became a member. So, it’s very interesting to see how ASEAN, as a regional organization, will develop, and whether we will see some forum shopping, agenda shopping. So, for example, what kind of issues Indonesia brings up in BRICS, and is Indonesia operating as a representative of ASEAN? Is Indonesia engaging these other ASEAN countries in creating new agendas through BRICS? Or do we see greater BRICS-ASEAN cooperation? And one aspect of BRICS has been that it wants to engage regional organizations much more. And in a way, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam are these bridge toward ASEAN.
I cannot tell you about exactly specific issues because they are still developing. Like Indonesia is still developing its own agenda. And one area that I noticed, especially in the, like, Middle East commentary by Indonesia, what Indonesia thinks about, for example, Gaza, that’s very much reflected in the latest, like, documents, BRICS, like, declarations. Another area, I would say, food. Food trade. That’s a big area for cooperation. ASEAN is very well known for this, like, food reserves, for rice diplomacy. So, I would look at, like, food as one possible area. Another area would be thinking about sustainable development more broadly, and to what extent tropical forest facility, forest cooperation, biodiversity cooperation. So, these are some of the spaces where I see the two groups converging.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to take the next question from Mike Nelson.
Q: Thank you very much. That was a very comprehensive presentation on a really complicated topic. And you did a great job. I’m someone who’s taught at Georgetown about tech policy and scenario planning, and I’m also a nonresident fellow at Kayou (ph) University and at the Carnegie Endowment here in Washington.
So, I’m going to ask you for two scenarios. One is positive and one is pretty scary. I understand the next meeting of the BRICS will be in India in August or September. One scenario I see, given what’s going on in the Gulf right now, is that things really break down or only half the members even bother to show up. I know it’s not common for most of the heads of state to show up, but here we have a situation where Iran is throwing thousands of missiles at another member of BRICS, the UAE, and the Saudis. These missiles are being built with Chinese materiel and targeted with Russian intelligence. It doesn’t seem like there’s going to be a lot of goodwill. And we could see some fiery speeches. And we could even see people pull out. I don’t know what’s required for someone to say, I’m going home. I’m not part of this.
The other side, and because Mr. Modi is pretty adept at running international meetings, I mean, he could find something else to talk about. And I would think he could talk a lot about the digital things that he’s been pushing at the G-20, at the AI Impact Summit. You mentioned that he might also talk about some other topics, like reform of the IMF. But which scenario do you think is more likely? And do you think Modi has a strategy to diffuse all the fights about what’s going on in the Gulf, by bringing up some other topic where there might be more agreement?
PAPA: So, thank you. One topic—it’s almost, like, when we look at Modi’s agenda for the year, with this, like, renaming of BRICS—one topic that stands out is sustainability. And when you—when you look at what all of these countries agree on, they agree on the importance of Sustainable Development Goals. And currently if we look at the U.S., the U.S. is out not only from climate agreements, it’s out of Sustainable Development Goals, which is a very big thing for BRICS countries. And especially it does not plan to even move forward the agenda on either climate or Sustainable Development Goals through G-20. So in a way, where I see Modi, and especially Jaishankar, the foreign minister, positioning India is in this, like, sweet spot of sustainable development goals where the idea is that BRICS is almost, like, an implementing agency for sustainable development.
And here, BRICS is not in the space where it is an alliance. So, it’s almost like saying, like, oh, why doesn’t BRICS intervene on Iran? It’s almost like saying, why doesn’t World Health Organization intervene on Iran? It’s not in its mission. So, it doesn’t have actual ambition to be a security alliance. And that has been a driving force, no matter what’s happening. Whether it’s, like, Ukraine happening, whether it’s India-China border dispute happening. BRICS has never aspired to be an alliance. So, when we think about what it will do in whenever—November, or whenever the summit will happen, it will just play to be like a mini-UN, where you can have Cuba and the U.S. at the same table. So, that would be my prediction on the kind of more breakdown scenario.
So, BRICS has a lot of, like, pomp and circumstance. The question, of course, would be which of the leaders will show up. But the point that they say is about South-South cooperation being technical cooperation. So, in a way, almost like bring boring back. So, how to make cooperation boring. And Jaishankar and Modi’s, like, biggest achievement would be to create BRICS into a boring organization that deals only with very technical issues. And that’s kind of what I see India moving toward, like, looking at, like, very generic, like, agriculture topics, thinking about reducing trade barriers, yes, thinking about the digital agendas like SDGs and AI, pursuing AI agenda. But keeping it very low key, boring. Trying to under—trying to focus on major drama behind the scenes, and presenting a fully polished front to the rest of the world, once the summit arrives.
FASKIANOS: Fantastic.
I think we have time for one last question. And I’m going to go to Kasahun Woldermariam, who’s a professor and chair of the political science department at Spelman College: The BRICS are made up of a desperate group—disparate group of—there’s a typo there—a different group of countries. Besides economy, is there anything else that really binds the members and makes the alliances endure?
PAPA: So, I think I skipped one of the questions on democracies, autocracies. I think the point is that they are made of different countries, because the whole point is that they are a dialogue of civilizations. Unlike European Union, which was built on trade, BRICS was built on development finance and future prospects. So in a way, you are bringing together a group of states to reform the system. So, there is this, like, future agenda. We are not talking about, yes, there is this, like, past—strong past connection, but there is very clear sense that they want to reform the system, and they want to plan the future together.
And at the same time, informally, countries are looking at how to hedge between powers, but also how to align themselves with China—as China is now a central part of almost, like, bipolarity, but actually develops some sort of multipolarity—and think about what collective leadership means, and if this collective leadership can be non-Western. So, this is—this is one area where BRICS is a test case. First of all, how China works with others, and second of all, whether actually China does not want to replace the U.S. as a superpower, but in what format it wants to work with other countries, and how other countries will actually be part of that, and how other countries will benefit from that, potentially.
FASKIANOS: Fantastic.
Thank you, Mihaela, for a terrific presentation, and insights that you shared, and the answers to the questions. We really appreciate it. And to all of you, for your questions. I’m sorry that we could not get to them all, but we will just have to have you back and continue talking about this topic. So, we really do appreciate your giving us your time.
And the last Global Affairs Expert Webinar of the semester will be on Wednesday, April 8, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time (EDT). Caitlin Welsh at the Center for Strategic and International Studies will lead a conversation on food and water security. And in the meantime, I encourage you to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. Visit CFR.org. ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues, and education.CFR.org for free expert-informed teaching and learning resources.
So, thank you all, again. And thank you, Mihaela Papa. We really appreciate it.
PAPA: Thank you so much for having me.
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