India watches BRICS’ new members warily because of Chinese influence

“China and India’s disagreement,” noted Hung Tran, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center in an essay, “regarding membership expansion will shape the prospects of aspiring BRICS countries and the organization’s future.’’

It’s a sound piece of crystal ball gazing. In August 2023, at the 15th BRICS Summit, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, announced that six emerging market group countries – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirate (UAE) – had been invited to join the bloc. Full membership was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2024.

Rush of new Brics members

Even though Argentina has withdrawn, South African authorities have announced that 22 countries have formally applied to join the BRICS group, and a similar number of countries have expressed their interest.

While such an expansion has added to the group’s stature, it also gets a potentially ticklish issue on the table: admitting too many new members risks diluting the BRICS group, making it ineffectual as far as arriving at a consensus is concerned.

Clearly, there are two groups here. China and Russia prefer a quick expansion of the BRICS group to strengthen their influence in important developing countries—many of whom also see the organization as an opportunity to get closer to China , economically.

India’s concerns are different and based on its national interest. It does not want to lose its influence if the BRICS group admits too many new members closely aligned with China’s agenda. But basically, both the Asian countries are keen to woo the Global South, a point which New Delhi underlined during the G20 meeting in September last year.

Given the three-year standoff at the Ladakh border, as well as a rivalry with Beijing for regional influence, New Delhi’s worries are understandable.

Not so fast

Against this backdrop, India has insisted on the `criteria’ for membership, before the new admissions. After the South African announcement on the new members, an Indian official was quoted as saying that “India took the lead in forging a consensus on membership criteria and the selection of new members,” and that its efforts were “guided by our objective to incorporate our Strategic Partners as new members”.

Former Indian Ambassador to China and Pakistan, Vijay Nambiar, believes the BRICS expansion is “an unmixed blessing.” “While there is no doubt that the original motto of the group has been diluted with the inclusion of new members, India will find that more countries from the Global South are allied to it and will widen the opportunities for cooperation. In a way, this expansion was inevitable and it offers opportunities,’’ he told this reporter.

The political ambitions of China and Russia, which is heading the BRICS chair in 2024, and would like to enforce a blatantly anti-US and West position, are not the only irritants. As the BRICS bloc grows, this year could bring about greater renminbi use across emerging markets—thanks in part to the growth of renminbi financial channels across BRICS countries. With Moscow at the helm and China by its side, policy initiatives across the bloc aimed at dedollarization emerging markets appear to be more feasible options.

India in particular, has appeared to be increasingly reluctant to embrace the renminbi’s rise. Last year, Reuters quoted an Indian official directly involved in the matter who said New Delhi is “not comfortable” with foreign trade settled in yuan or renminbi but appeared “OK” with the dirham. He said that India could not possibly allow settlement in yuan till the relations between the two countries improve. And that appears a tall order, now or later.

India has reportedly asked banks and traders to avoid using Chinese yuan to pay for Russian imports. Adds Ambassador Nambiar: “China has been promoting its currency, the renminbi, for a long time now, not just for the countries in the Global South but all over the world, including developed capitals of the world like London. So, certainly, the competition is in-built.”

The Pakistan factor

Another traditional Indian bug bear is Pakistan, which has formally sought membership in BRICS, at a time when the body is fast gaining the status as the leading bloc of the Global South. Calling BRICS an “important group of developing countries”, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign ministry, told reporters last year that the country has made a “formal request” to join the group.

An Indian diplomat, who preferred anonymity, said that there was no serious effort as yet to include Pakistan, “and even if there is a clash of interest here, it is a long-term proposition that has the backing of Islamabad’s “all weather’’ friend, China.”

The founding countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China held the first summit in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in 2009, with South Africa joining the bloc a year later. Originally identified to highlight investment opportunities, the grouping evolved into a cohesive geopolitical bloc, with their governments meeting annually at formal summits and coordinating multilateral policies since 2009.