Building BRICS Challenges and opportunities for South-South collaboration in a multipolar world
Topics
The BRICS bloc poses a strategic challenge to Western hegemony, but to understand its potential as a counter-power requires a closer look at the complex relations within the bloc and between its members and other countries in the Global South.

Illustration by Shehzil Malik
BRICS and international power
The BRICS grouping gradually formed during the 2000s, originating from an acronym coined by Goldman Sachs to identify promising markets for economic and financial investment. In 2003, the IBSA Dialogue Forum was established as a coalition of India, Brazil and South Africa, aimed at fostering South–South cooperation (SSC). By 2006, Brazil, China, India and Russia had begun convening on the side-lines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), signalling their growing alignment. The first official BRICS summit followed in 2009, hosted in Russia, inaugurating a series of annual meetings that steadily expanded the bloc’s scope beyond its initial market-oriented conception. It was by no means the first such alignment among Global South countries. Earlier such coalitions include the Non-Aligned Movement, the United Nations coalition for a New International Economic Order, as well as regional integration projects, such as ALBA and UNASUR in Latin America.
The first, and most common, analysis of the BRICS countries is the top-down view that regards the international system as states seeking to maintain or increase their power in an environment of competition among them. From this perspective, the BRICS seek to accumulate economic, political and military capabilities vis-à-vis the US and Europe, primarily the European Union (EU).
In the context of the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), the BRICS sought to act in a coordinated manner in multilateral forums to demand the reform of global governance institutions. This has been a point of tension, as some Western and other powers have sought to delay or even prevent such reforms in the multilateral and financial institutions created in the post-war period, raising expectations of the BRICS’ ‘counter-hegemonic’ potential. Optimistically, Radka Desai noted that ‘not since the Non-Aligned Movement and the call for a new economic order in the 1970s has the world seen such a coordinated challenge to Western hegemony in the global economy from developing countries’. Walden Bello also regards the role of the BRICS as positive for the Global South, by providing a counter-power in negotiations with Western countries and institutions.3 Conversely, Ray Kiely argues that the BRICS’ rise has meant more – and not less – integration into globalisation: ‘The rise of these countries owes less to state capitalist deviations from neoliberal prescriptions which originated in the West, and more to the embrace of globalization friendly policies’.4
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the BRICS’ common agenda was to reform the Bretton Woods Institutions, in particular the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Patrick Bond and I have argued, however, that the BRICS’ position was neither of confrontation nor of demanding an end to neoliberal globalisation, but rather of claiming a full ‘seat at the table’ in order to gain a greater voice and participation in existing institutions.5 In an early article in 2013, Vijay Prashad argued that the BRICS represent a conservative attempt by the powers of the South (and East) to occupy a place commensurate with their global economic importance. In other words, BRICS countries have tried to show that there is a contradiction between their economic potential and their political role. Although reformist agenda has created tensions it is to date far from posing a geopolitical counterweight to the West.
Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014 marked a turning point for the BRICS alliance, shifting from its focus on economic reform to being increasingly seen as a geopolitical counterweight. EU Sanctions on Russia predate 2022, and subsequent geopolitical tensions between the BRICS countries and the West have continued to escalate. With the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the US increasingly turned its attention to containing China's technological expansion. In early 2022, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the world was sometimes portrayed as ‘West vs. East’. As BRICS shifted from being an economic bloc to an increasingly geopolitical alliance, the common priority agenda is no longer just to reform the international financial institutions (IFIs), but to build new alliances and create new institutions that can lead to a ‘“multipolar world’. Thus, BRICS has become a magnet for countries that do not fit into the structures of the US-dominated international order and have requested to join the BRICS group.
Two issues have defined the geopolitical moment for BRICS: its expansion to include new members and the reduction of dependence on the US dollar. Expansion has always been on the Chinese agenda, as it promoted the inclusion of South Africa in BRICS in 2011, but has since been reinforced by Russia. In 2023, six countries were invited to join: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The inclusion of Saudi Arabia is noteworthy, since it is a historical US ally in the Middle East, as well as its renowned enemy Iran, which is still under US sanctions; and that China has recently acted as a broker to resolve tension between the two countries. At the 2024 Kazan Summit in Russia, Türkiye, a NATO member, joined BRICS as a strategic partner, alongside Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Brazil’s move to include Argentina (aiming to balance the Latin American membership of BRICS) was a risk, as the country was facing elections and the far-right candidate, now president, Javier Milei, is hostile to China and close to Trump, and thus declined the invitation to join the group. At the same time, Argentina remains deeply dependent on Chinese financial support to overcome the blockages imposed by the financial markets and to have access to credit and resources that are not calculated in US dollars. In this sense, despite the rhetoric, Milei has renewed agreements established by the previous peronista governments for swap exchanges in renminbi and pesos.6
This leads to the second issue that marks the geopolitical moment: reducing the dependence on the US dollar and creating trade and credit mechanisms in local currencies. Youfen Li has pointed out that ‘India has started buying Russian oil in renminbi, Saudi currency and rubles. Russia and China traded Russian oil, coal and metals in renminbi. Russia and a group of African countries began talks on establishing settlements in national currencies, eliminating both the U.S. dollar and the euro’.7 Brazil and China announced the creation of a clearing house to allow commercial transactions and loans in renminbi. As part of the sanctions against Russia, the US has frozen its international reserves, resulting in an increase in the share of renminbi in trade between China and Russia.
Russia’s presidency of the BRICS in 2024 advanced this agenda. The Kazan Declaration announced several new initiatives, in particular the creation of new infrastructure for financial transactions in local currencies: the BRICS Interbank Cooperation Mechanism (ICM) to facilitate innovative financial approaches, including the exploration of financing mechanisms in local currency; the BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative (BCBPI), a voluntary and non-binding initiative aimed at strengthening correspondent banking networks among the BRICS countries and enabling settlements in local currencies; BRICS Clear, designed to provide independent cross-border clearing and settlement while complementing existing financial market infrastructure; and the independent BRICS reinsurance capacity, including the BRICS (Re)Insurance Company, with voluntary participation.
Its General Strategy 2022-2026 states that the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) aims to have 30% of its financing in its members’ local currencies by 2026. Its 2021 annual report stated that by the end of that year, 23% of cumulative approved loans were in local currency, and reached 70% of China’s in the same year.8
Intra-BRICS relations
A second way of looking at the BRICS is from a horizontal (or ‘sideways’) perspective, by analysing intra-bloc relations and identifying their convergences and asymmetries. Over the past 15 years, the BRICS have created new institutions and expanded the scope of intra-bloc cooperation. Examples include annual meetings of foreign ministers on the side-lines of the United Nations General Assembly; regular meetings of sectoral working groups, such as on health; meetings of finance ministers and central bankers at the G20; and the creation of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Reserve Contingent Arrangement (ARC). The BRICS also recognise other non-government bodies, such as the BRICS Business Council, the BRICS Think Tanks Council and Academic Forum, the Civil BRICS, and the ‘Brics from below’.9
However, my research conducted for the PACS Institute and ActionAid Brazil on Chinese investment in Brazil, India and South Africa found persistent economic asymmetries among the BRICS countries, due mainly to China’s economic dominance. Data from the Trade Map further highlights these disparities.
Three BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia and South Africa maintain trade surpluses with China, although their exports are largely of primary agricultural and mineral commodities. For example, between 2013 and 2023, Brazil’s top three exports to China – oilseeds, ores, and mineral fuels – accounted for 80.72% of its total exports. Similarly, 63.78% of South Africa’s trade with China was in natural or cultured pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, precious metals, ores, slag, ash, and iron and steel. Russia’s exports to China also relied heavily on raw materials, with crude oil, refined petroleum, natural gas, and coal making up 67% of its trade during the same period. India is the only BRICS nation with a trade deficit with China, and although its exports focus mainly on primary products, they are more diversified. Between 2013 and 2023, ores, fish and crustaceans, and organic chemicals accounted for 35.6% of its total exports to China.10
In contrast, China’s intra-BRICS exports are concentrated in advanced industrial goods, such as electrical machinery and equipment, audio and television recording and reproducing devices, parts and accessories for these products, as well as nuclear reactors, boilers, and other machinery and mechanical appliances. This asymmetry underscores the diverse trade dynamics among the BRICS countries, with China supplying higher-value manufactured goods while the others rely on exporting raw materials and minimally processed goods. These trade patterns mirror the traditional international division of labour, centred on China, and are further reflected in the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) among BRICS nations, reinforcing economic imbalances within the bloc.
Other recent BRICS Policy Center research has deepened the analysis and comparison with Chinese FDI in Brazil and South Africa. China has been the major trading partner of both countries since 2009 and is one of the most important sources of loans and FDI. Politically, Brazil and South Africa are now significant partners of China in their respective regions, as well as in the BRICS and other multilateral arenas, such as the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the China-CELAC Forum.
From a historical perspective, countries across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and Africa need to support the diversification of economic partnerships that could potentially counterbalance the omnipresence of the US and the EU in these regions. How far could South–South investments create new opportunities for more equitable and sustainable socio-environmental development? And to what extent do such investments reproduce the traditional international division of labour, generate the exploitation of labour and natural resources, and create new asymmetries?
Based on case studies of the Manaus Industrial Park in the Brazilian Amazon and the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, with my colleagues we have shown that, within the capitalist mode of production, South–South investments fail to provide a positive economic alternative for local workers, communities, and the environment. For example, in our research on four Chinese factories in the Manaus Industrial Park in Brazil, workers reported worsening working conditions, as Chinese companies pay lower wages and offer fewer benefits and incentives than comparable global companies in the manufacturing sector. Moreover, factories tend to centralise decision-making on staffing in their headquarters, leaving local workers little autonomy or creative capacity.
BRICS and capital accumulation in the Global South
This brings us to a third approach to analyzing the BRICS, centered on their relations with other developing countries and regions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This perspective adopts a bottom-up approach, seeing the way in which each BRICS member country functions as a regional power, striving to influence and amass economic power over poorer countries. It unpacks the hierarchies within the Global South, and also encompasses the antagonisms and conflicts involving social forces that resist extractive mega-projects driven by multinational corporations, as well as by financial institutions from BRICS countries.
Patrick Bond regards the BRICS as sub-imperial powers, characterised by super-exploitation of labour and collaboration (albeit with tensions) with imperial powers.11 Bond builds on David Harvey’s idea of newly developing centres of capital accumulation that need temporal-spatial fixes to dispose of their surplus capital. Harvey had argued that a flood of Chinese FDI is flowing across Africa and Latin America, putting Chinese (and Indian) companies at the centre of mineral and agricultural commodity chains, extractivism and landgrabs. Examples include the Brazilian mining company Vale's actions in Mozambique, which have resulted in displacing communities, environmental degradation and labour violations12; the impacts of Chinese oil and mining companies in Ecuador, Peru, and countries across Africa;13 and Russian mining companies in Zimbabwe.14 Infrastructure projects such as oil pipelines have affected community territories, as in the case of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) between Tanzania and Uganda, involving the French company Total and the Chinese company CNOOC. Community representatives and solidarity movements mobilised across Africa against the EACOP and participated in the protests during the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg in August 2023, as part of the BRICS from below teach-in meeting.
Pradraig Carmody argues that South African and Chinese capital generally work together to exploit natural resources and dominate the African continent. In Latin America, many left-leaning intellectuals, such as Atilio Borón, view relations with China as an alternative to US imperialism, potentially fostering more autonomous political spaces for regional integration initiatives and regional institutions free from US interference.15 Others, however, analyse the relationship with China as unequal and dependent on trade and investment, which serves to guarantee the supply of raw materials and facilitate the opening of markets for Chinese companies’ high-tech products and services.
More recently I have delved deeper into the issue of investment facilitation and protection agreements between countries in the Global South, taking a closer look at the BRICS investment agreements with African and Latin American countries.16 A bilateral investment treaty (BIT) is a legal instrument to protect investments and investors in each other’s territory from nationalisation, expropriation, and similar measures without adequate compensation. It is an expression of corporate power in global capitalism that represents a new Lex Mercatoria, as pointed by Juan Hernández Zubizarreta. For him, it generates a normative asymmetry that ensures that transnational corporations secure commercial rights, in the face of which international human rights law is fragile. Across the LAC region, social movements have played a major role in the debate and critical engagement on investment and free trade agreements (FTAs), leading important resistance campaigns throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
Although BITs are characterised by asymmetric agreements between wealthier and poorer countries, the number of BITs signed by the latter has increased since the 2000s. For instance, among the BITs signed by the BRICS countries, China is now the world leader: 145 treaties signed and 124 in force. In the LAC region, China has 15 BITs and four FTAs as well as 34 BITs in Africa.
In my 2023 research on BRICS agreements with African countries and Latin American countries17 I found that while some BRICS countries have variously pushed for reforms of the international investment regime, with the exception of Brazil, they all use the traditional BIT model. South Africa and India have terminated old-generation treaties: South Africa has developed a new domestic law to replace BITS, and India has developed a new restrictive model; Russia has also issued new guidelines for negotiating BITs. Brazil has gone the furthest by developing an entirely new model that does not include investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). Conversely, China has taken advantage of the existing treaty arrangements and has not developed a reformed or alternative BIT model, adapting the current model to each country with which it enters into negotiation.
And yet, despite the reformist approach with regard to their relations with Latin American and the Caribbean, as well as with African countries, the BRICS’ use of the traditional BIT model - with the exception of Brazil – reinforces the rules and principles that guarantee rights to foreign investors at the expense of states’ sovereign right to regulate in the public interest, on issues such as the environment, health, labour rights and macroeconomic stability. As highlighted, there are several ISDS cases involving multinationals based in BRICS countries against countries in Africa and Latin America.18
Looking forward
These three dimensions of BRICS analysis are complementary since although each highlights a specific reality, none alone provides the full picture of current changes and conjunctures in global capitalism. Together, however, they reposition the debate beyond the tired ‘North–South’ and ‘West–East’ dichotomies.
In this sense, Walter Mignolo19 highlights the rise of the Global South amid growing tensions between two trajectories: ‘re-Westernisation’ and ‘de-Westernisation’, both underpinned by capitalist economies. Mignolo emphasises the struggle between East and West for control over the ‘colonial matrix of power’, which encompasses knowledge, subjectivity, gender, sexuality, economy, and authority, and intersects with racism and patriarchy. Rather than offering an alternative to capitalist oppression, both operate within capitalist frameworks shaped by their distinct local histories.
Similarly, there is a need for a deeper reflection on what the ‘Global South’ means and and its different uses. As Aude Darnal suggests, the ‘Global South’ is not merely a geographic, economic, or developmental category, but rather encompasses diverse states that seek to promote decentralisation and multipolarity in the global political economy and to reduce the dominance of the US and the EU.
Thus, although Global South is a category that helps to move things politically in the international arena, it is not necessarily always positive in terms of socio-environmental advances and human rights. While the current narrative of the Global South serves to foster a sense of common identity among lower-income or peripheral countries, it needs to be scrutinised in order to achieve a more equitable and mutually beneficial South–South agenda. This means improving the quality of South–South cooperation. For example, there is a need to improve the relationship between Brazil and South Africa through exchanges and the development of joint strategies based on development programmes that put people’s needs before profits. South–South technology transfer and effective cooperation in areas such as health, the environment, agriculture, and energy are fundamental to achieving better social and working conditions for the majority: women, Indigenous peoples, Black populations, small farmers, workers, and so on. BRICS may potentially become a multilateral space for progressive social forces to advance these agendas, but there is still a long way to go.
Other essays
State of Power 2025Read other essays from Geopolitics of Capitalism in State of Power 2025, or explore the full report online here.
-
A fractured world Reflections on power, polarity and polycrisis
Publication date: -
The new frontline The US-China battle for control of global networks
Publication date: -
AI wars in a new age of Great Power rivalry Interview with Tica Font, Centre Delàs d’Estudis per la Pau, Barcelona
Publication date: -
Geopolitics of genocide
Publication date: -
Can China challenge the US empire?
Publication date: -
China and the geopolitics of the green transition
Publication date: -
Beyond Big Tech Geopolitics Moving towards local and people-centred artificial intelligence
Publication date: -
The emerging sub-imperial role of the United Arab Emirates in Africa
Publication date: -
A transatlantic bargain Europe’s ultimate submission to US empire
Publication date: -
In search of alternatives Strategies for social movements to counter imperialism and authoritarianism
Publication date: