Call for BRICS to be the champion of fairness, justice and inclusiveness

The 16th meeting of BRICS leaders, from Tuesday to Thursday, coincided with the International Monetary Fund's and World Bank's annual meetings held on Monday through Saturday.

The IMF and World Bank meetings convened in Washington, while the BRICS leaders gathered in Kazan, Russia, a target of sanctions and isolation by the United States-led West. Both the timing and venue of this year's BRICS summit may cement the impression of it being a counterweight to the US-led world order.

But as the summit's all-encompassing, 43-page final communique shows it is reform and not overthrowing of the global system that the BRICS countries desire. The document includes such objectives as developing an alternative international payment system to SWIFT, from which Russia has been effectively cut off since 2022. That was among many proposals intended to consolidate BRICS' role as a truly multilateral platform for international cooperation.

Some in the West certainly feel concerned about such optics in Kazan as the leaders of China and Russia congratulating each other for the thriving bilateral collaboration. But inside BRICS, peacefully ending the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East were topics of universal concern.

And never forget that for all the Western chatter about the Chinese and Russian leaders wanting to challenge the global order, their vision of a fairer and more just world order that has appealed to the Global South is not one of confrontation. Dissatisfaction with the international political status quo — a post-World War II world order shaped by the US-led West in which developing and emerging economies are significantly disadvantaged — is a key reason for the appeal of BRICS. To their credit, the IMF and World Bank have been instrumental in facilitating global development for decades. But the institutionalized Western monopoly of such traditional global development aid mechanisms and their traditional neglect of the needs of developing countries have helped rally the latter around the BRICS banner of a more equitable new order. New in the sense that it features greater say for developing and emerging economies in global governance, not that these countries are joining hands to overthrow the existing world order and build a brand-new one.

For those suspicious of the orientation of the BRICS grouping, it helps to heed what Chinese President Xi Jinping had to say about it. The Chinese leader expressed worries about the chaotic state of world affairs, and wished for what he and his Russian counterpart envision as a fair, just and multipolar world. But at the end of the day, his aim is to unite the broad Global South for common prosperity and security, rather than creating a tool of "bloc confrontation".Running through such recent Chinese proposals as a community with a shared future for mankind and the initiatives for global development, civilization and security is an emphasis on "inclusiveness".

And Xi underlined that same message in Kazan. Praising the expansion of BRICS as a hallmark of a changing international geopolitical landscape, and warning about the danger of a "new Cold War", he called on BRICS members and partners to uphold a new concept of security featuring dialogue instead of confrontation, partnership instead of alliance, as well as universally-benefiting, inclusive economic globalization. His proposals echoed the summit's theme of "Strengthening multilateralism for equitable global development and security".

It is the Global South countries' common aspiration for a more equitable global order that has enabled BRICS' expansion from the original five members to its current size, and counting. According to the Russian president, dozens of more countries have already put themselves on the waiting list to join the grouping. BRICS may or may not be what Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called "the epicenter of the new multipolar world". But it does have the potential to give the Global South greater influence on the world stage, as it now accounts for 45 percent of the world's population and 35 percent of its economy.

What it now needs to demonstrate is "the audacity to pioneer and the wisdom to adapt".