US president elect, Donald Trump. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Brics summit in Kazan, Russia, in October thrust Vladimir Putin, as Brics chair, into the spotlight, with strong statements prior to the summit on further expansion.
The summit outcome was the addition of a further 13 members as partner members.
This expansion is seen by analysts globally to signal the end of United States hegemony in the global political economy, a turning point in history, even prior to the outcome of the US presidential race.
The US election results signal a moment of global uncertainty, with the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump ending in a decisive Republican victory.
Although there is some debate about the degree to which Brics is contesting US global dominance, it is evident that Brics states want to gain greater power in the field of finance and economics: the push for de-dollarisation and for trading in local currencies will continue.
De-dollarisation could be a game changer for the Global South. The summit made what some might call baby-steps in the direction of trading in local currencies.
The Brics Cross-Border Payments Initiative (BCBPI), which aims to facilitate linkages between banking networks, could be a positive initiative.
Critics have argued that the New Development Bank (NDB) is not an alternative to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) because the Contingent Reserve Arrangement to bail out Brics states in distress is linked to the Bretton Woods financial institutions.
According to the Brics Declaration, the NDB is testing the CRA and Brics states will work to ensure that the bank is upgraded to a multilateral development bank on par with other international lending institutions.
In a display of support in the Global South, the Brics Development Bank pledged R5 billion to the upgrading of South Africa’s Transnet for rail network upgrading (mainly locomotives for coal exports) just prior to the acclaimed 2024 Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).
The FOCAC this year also saw the rebranding of China-Africa economic relations away from controversial mega-projects. Where this leaves the Belt and Road Initiative into Africa is unclear.
It is equally obvious that from an African and Global South perspective, the new narrative on Global South Development through Belt and Road is a way of balancing the US critique and comments on Africa as a collection of failed, corrupt and developmentally ailing states.
China’s changing priorities towards funding African development through smaller projects show a possible willingness to adapt to African priorities and economic needs.
The significance, ceremony and size of the FOCAC and Brics Summits in 2024 amplifies the significance of the tectonic power shifts occurring in the Global South in relation to the Global North. Tensions are amplified by Putin’s hard line on peace talks in the Ukraine, and Trump’s electoral victory.
Yet, the relative flimsiness of Brics cohesion shows itself up in the broader international setting of the G20, this year held in Rio de Janeiro with President Lula a Silva firmly at the helm.
The usual lip-service to sustainable development and eradicating inequality have been loudly pronounced, by Lula himself at the closing of the G20 Social, a new event which included thousands of NGO and activist movements in Brazil.
Yet Brics as a cohesive entity did not feature at the G20 in think tank discussions and more activist social G20 debates, a sure sign of the lack of Brics ideational glue in relation to paving the way to a fairer global political economy.
Given the US election outcomes and the intransigent wars in the Ukraine and Gaza, the balance of political and economic forces will be in flux over the next months, if not years. In this global terrain of uncertainty, African leaders have been handed a powerful bargaining tool in international and bilateral agreements.
It is a unique moment and one not to be under-estimated.
As the Brics summit acknowledges, plentiful natural resources are required for 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) technological innovation and the building of reliably alternative economic and financial arrangements.
Yet unsurprisingly, South Africa, at both presidential and international relations department level, have resorted to “eggshell diplomacy” towards China and Russia in Kazan, which does not bode well for taking a firm stance on economic cooperation and global security issues.
The battle for geostrategic spheres of influence, as demonstrated by the outcomes of the Brics summit, are amplified both by the FOCAC solidarity with China. Even more so by the expanded Brics, now a bloc that rivals the stranglehold that the US has had on multilateral institutions, especially the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and the IMF.
Africa’s global economic strategic advantages, especially as the expansion of Brics in October 2024, heralds the end of US unilateral hegemony on the global stage, but also opens up a need for detailed investigation about the nature and effect of China’s opaque lending in terms of investments, megaprojects and loans.
Even while the Chinese government hates the expression debt diplomacy, there is ample evidence that African leaders have accepted Chinese funded megaprojects that have raised debt levels to dangerous levels. As the South African mid term budget speech emphasised, the debt to GDP ratio is already a hamstring to development, lessons from the continent ought to be well observed.
In capitalising on global imperial rivalries, African governments should not be so naive as to believe in trite phrases such as win-win as a form of ethical inter-governmental partnership building. In the global political economy, the field of intergovernmental cooperation, state self-interest is the tipping point in decision-making. Africa and the Global South would also do well to build partnerships on the same basis.
Highlighting this point is the positionality of the different Brics members regarding the US. For South Africa, India and Brazil allegiance to the Brics bloc is less about challenging world dominance and more about strategic choices, including more bargaining power in the UN.
South Africa garnered Brics support for two permanent African state seats on the security council, an endorsement made even more poignant by African leader outrage at the US ambassador to the UN offering to endorse two seats but with no veto power.
In the context of the rapidly shifting forces of political and economic power, it is easy to overstate the importance of Brics in the new global dis-order.
At the same time, it is also pertinent to remind ourselves of South Africa’s relatively weak position in Brics. A poignant example is President Cyril Ramaphosa and the international relations department attempting to broker a peace deal on Ukraine since 2022. Ramaphosa’s attempts this year were again met with Putin’s (literal) silence.
Power balances have shifted, but the residue of Cold War North-South rivalries certainly supersede the rise of the Chinese-led new Global South.
Power balances may have shifted, but global insecurity remains. We can only hope that in this state of flux, we do not see the emergence of “he who shall not be named”. Whether Hitler or Voldemort spring to mind, we have real life contenders lined up, with the threat of nuclear war already in the public domain.
Lisa Thompson is a political economist and public sector transformation specialist at the University of the Western Cape.