🇧🇷🇷🇺🇮🇳🇨🇳🇿🇦 The BRICS strengthened the trend towards the formation of a multipolar system of international relations and the growth of economic cooperation among the states of the world.

The development of the BRICS has contributed to the birth of a new economic system, based on the equal access of countries to financing and sales markets, a combination of state planning and a market economy.

The value of the BRICS paradigm does not lie in expanding the capabilities or ambitions of the BRICS countries, but in a qualitative change in the economic development model of the Global South, writes Valdai Club expert Anastasia Stepanova.

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🌏 The only real way to expedite the construction of Grand Eurasia is via the “integration of integrations” scenario.

It may involve the aggregation of Eurasia’s leading regional integration arrangements (and their developing institutions) represented by developing economies.

Such a platform of developing economies across the expanse of Eurasia can bring together such regional arrangements as:

➖ South Asian Association for regional Cooperation (SAARC)
➖ ASEAN, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
➖ Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)
➖ The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

In the case of SCO there may be the possibility to resort to an extended SCO+ format which would involve the addition to SCO of those Eurasian economies that are outside of the main regional integration arrangements.

The resulting SAGES platform may represent the main assembly line for economic cooperation among the Eurasian developing economies that is based on the mechanism of “integration of integrations”.

In case a comprehensive pan-Eurasian platform for developing economies were to be formed this would open the gateway to the completion of the assembly of platforms that span the entire expanse of the Global South, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Yaroslav Lissovolik. 

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🇧🇷🇷🇺🇮🇳🇨🇳🇿🇦 Today BRICS is no longer a club of growth leaders, and the ability of the candidate countries to effectively participate in solving the most acute current problems facing the developing world - the energy and food crises - is coming to the fore.

In many respects, these considerations have dictated China's desire to include Argentina and Iran in the union, despite all the well-known problems facing the economies of these countries.

The new global situation requires developing countries to push old grievances to the background, so that they may work on the task of increasing the representative nature of the BRICS, expanding its potential in addressing the food and energy crises.

The inclusion of new full members of the BRICS is a long process, which, even with the consent of all participants, could take several years. The Chinese approach to foreign policy is traditionally characterised by flexibility and action on several tracks at once. It is this “second track” that BRICS+ is intended to become, writes Dmitry Razumovsky, Acting Director of the Institute for Latin American Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

👉 On July 12, we discussed this and other issues within the framework of the expert discussion timed to coincide with the release of the new Valdai paper “BRICS+: The Global South Responds to New Challenges (in the Context of China’s BRICS Presidency)”. Watch the video.

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🌐 The Bretton Woods system arose at the final stage of the Second World War (1944) as a result of negotiations between 44 states, led by the United States and Britain.

The two key Bretton Woods institutions were the International Monetary Fund (mission — currency stability and convertibility) and the World Bank (assistance in the reconstruction of war-torn states, as well as assistance to countries embarking on the path of decolonization).

Today there is no state or group of countries on the planet capable of imposing its will on the entire world community, however, today we are witnessing another wave of interest in reforming Bretton Woods.

Let us single out several main approaches that dominate the modern discussion about reforming Bretton Woods 2.

🎯 Technocratic approach. Its supporters, representing the structures of the UN and other international organizations, believe that the system should be preserved, correcting only the forms of organisation of work and adapting the system management structure to modern realities.

🎯 Liberal approach. During the period when Christine Lagarde held the post of Managing Director of the IMF (2011-2019), an attempt was made to widely introduce issues of the liberal agenda into the activities of the Bretton Woods institutions. During this period, gender equality, sustainable development, the fight against climate change and socio-economic inequality in all its manifestations were recognised as new priorities in the work of the Bretton Woods System.

🎯 Neo-Marxist approach. Supporters of this approach sharply criticise the structures of the Bretton Woods System for their adherence to the ultra-liberal “Washington Consensus” and the practice of “conditionality”, i. e. putting forward political conditions when issuing credit to the countries of the Global South. 

🎯 Construction of a parallel “Anti-Bretton Woods”. This approach, from our point of view, has not yet been formalised, but over time, China, Russia, and with them other BRICS states as an international forum with claims to certain functions of an intergovernmental organisation are increasingly inclined towards establishing it.

A new or radically reformed Bretton Woods, of course, should take into account the opinion of all the states of the planet, regardless of their size. The solution of such a problem through negotiations will last for many years, while the likelihood of success will be minimal, writes Valdai Club expert Stanislav Tkachenko.

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🌏 One of the important aspects of ASEAN’s greater capability to play a global role on the international stage is its neutrality that the bloc is observing amid the rising rivalry between China and the US in the Pacific. 

In pursuing the quest for maintaining a balanced and neutral position on the international arena there may be scope for ASEAN to explore the possibilities of greater cooperation with the cooperative arrangements that bring together the Global South and the advanced economies. ASEAN has made significant advances in this direction via building the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) together with China, Japan and South Korea.

At the same time there remains scope to complement the active ASEAN-EU links with greater engagement of ASEAN countries with the platforms developed by the Global South. In particular, ASEAN could become one of the key pillars in the BRICS+ global platform, it could also play a leading role in the creation of platform for Eurasia’s developing economies (Greater Eurasia). 

The year 2022 is a special one for ASEAN as a number of its prominent members have taken over the chairmanship in some of the key global and regional organisations. In particular Indonesia is the chair of the G20 and is actively preparing to conduct the G20 summit, while Thailand is the Chair in APEC.

Given its neutrality and mediation capabilities ASEAN could lead the creation of a global platform for regional integration arrangements – something that it could pursue on the basis of an R20 (regional 20) format within the G20, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Yaroslav Lissovolik.

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