Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr.’s speech at the BRICS Seminar on Governance & Cultural Exchange Forum 2024, held in Moscow, Russia, on September 23, 2024. The Seminar was organized by the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies, and the China International Communications Group, with the support of Russian institutions. This text was provided to us for exclusive publication by the author and reflects their personal opinions.

The challenges that the BRICS countries face are now much bigger than they were when the group was formed back in 2008. The international context has become much more hostile and dangerous. Three of the member countries – China, Iran, and especially Russia – have very difficult relations with the West, to put it mildly. Although this may be controversial, I believe it can be said that these difficulties have been initiated primarily by the United States and other developed countries that increasingly impose trade barriers, restrictions,  and sanctions of different kinds, including in the monetary field.

From a geopolitical standpoint, the BRICS are a diverse group. Brazil and India, for example, have on the whole good relations with the US, Europe, and Japan. India in particular has its own national reasons to maintain some proximity to the US. But Brazil and India realize, of course, the dangers of a situation in which the previously hegemonic countries, the US and its allies or satellites, resist fiercely their relative decline in economic, demographic, and political terms – to the point of having a destabilizing impact on all countries.

China is the main source of concern, for obvious reasons. It has become the largest economy in the world, measured in PPP terms, and the truth is that the US views China’s rise with suspicion and jealousy.  The situation is reminiscent of the one that existed in the decades before World War I. Germany was on the rise and this led to great preoccupations in Britain, the previously hegemonic power. La perfide Albion, to use Napoleon’s famous expression, articulated a wide-ranging coalition against the upcoming rival that ultimately led to Germany’s  defeat in 1918. China is, I believe, aware of these precedents. And if I know the Chinese well, they have probably studied the German experience quite carefully. In this respect, they seem to follow Bismarck who once said: “I never learn from my own experience, only from that of other people.”

What role can the BRICS, now with 9 countries, play in a world fraught with unprecedented risks? Should the BRICS continue to expand the number of its members? If so, how? What have we learned from our experience with major economic initiatives such as the New Development Bank (NDB), headquartered in Shanghai, and the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), the group’s monetary fund? How should we proceed with discussions concerning matters such as alternative payment systems, the use of our national currencies in external transactions, and the especially the possible creation by us of a new international reserve currency? Can the BRICS act together to provide a viable alternative to the US dollar and the existing international monetary and financial arrangements?

Click here to read more.