Dr Vedapratap Vaidik
BRICS is the acronym coined to associate the five major emerging economies- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The 14th summit of this international group was held this time in Beijing, as China is the current president of the association. Prime Minister Narendra Modi this time skipped the meet held in China, but he participated in the meet online from Delhi. There is no need to give the reasons for the Prime Minister not going to China. We may recall that despite the Galvan dispute there has been a sizable jump in the Sino-India trade.
India is the only BRICS member which is a part of the new alliances of the two superpowers. India is a member of the quadrangle consisting of the US, Japan and Australia and is also a member of the new quadruplet, in which the US, Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are members.
China openly says that both these factions symbolize a sort of Cold War-mentality. America took initiative to form this group as a resistance force against China and Russia on multiple fronts. Chinese leader Xi Chin Fing reiterated this point in this BRICS summit. India took a neutral posture, and did not support Russia or America on Ukraine tussle! In this summit also, India appealed to resolve the disputes between Russia and Ukraine through dialogue and our request was highlighted in the joint statement.
Similarly, Prime Minister Modi welcomed the new initiatives to increase mutual cooperation among BRICS nations. He advocated for people to people relations among these nations. In fact we still do not have any such relation even between neighboring SAARC (SAARC) countries, then how could we think of any people to people relation happening between BRICS and quadruple countries? To build a firm relation between our neighboring nations I am in the process of forming an organization, ‘People’s SAARC’, consisting of 16 adjoining nations of India.
In the joint statement of BRICS, need for effective counter-terrorism initiatives were mentioned with prominence, also and Afghan’s help was sought in this respect. The statement also said that other countries promoting terrorism in Afghan soil was a unacceptable.
China also allowed such an anti-Pakistan view finding place in the joint statement and this has to be seen as a success of India.
There are many differences among the BRICS members but that in no way reflected in the joint statement. Some new nations also expressed their desire to join BRICS.
If the disputes between China and India can be resolved, since both are members of BRICS, then this organization will be regarded as the world’s most powerful group, because 41 percent of the world’s population is from these nations. This group of nations contribute 24 percent of the total GDP of the world and 16 percent of the global trade belongs to BRICS members.
*Dr. Vaidik is the President of the Indian Foreign Policy Council
*Dr. Vaidik is a widely travelled scholar-journalist. He has visited more than 80 countries on diplomatic and educational missions. Dr. Vaidik has won more than a dozen National and International awards for academic and journalistic excellence. He has been a member of several Advisory Committees of Government of India.
