ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the India-China construct within BRICS is based on mutual appreciation and reciprocation of shared global interests that are keys to their ‘developing world’ identity.1 These shared global interests are planned to achieve national security interests that are continental and global in nature and are important to their own international positioning and status bearing. BRICS (which commenced as BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India and China) began in 2001 as a conceptual formulation of Goldman Sachs, which was later highlighted in Dreaming with BRICS: The Path to 2050, that the collective output of BRIC would outshine the G-7 economies in US dollar terms in less than 40 years. BRICS’s strength lies in its collective three billion people, who constitute almost 43 per cent of the global population (Zheng Xinli 2011). It has combined approximate US$4 trillion foreign reserves and GDP of $13.7 trillion. BRICS accounts for almost 18 per cent of world economic aggregate, which is vital enough for various financial reform politics (ibid.). It is also predicted that by the year 2015, BRICS’s GDP will increase to almost 23 per cent of the world figure, and touch almost 31 per cent by 2020 (ibid.). At a basic political level, BRICS’s exclusivity is about ‘emerging powers’ and more aptly about the ‘developing world’ thesis in the existing North-South divide. As an ‘emerging powers’ club, BRICS is under the global spotlight and has become institutionalised slowly (see Table 13.1). The rise of BRICS countries has been impressive, particularly that of China and India. More than China’s and India’s economic growth trajectory, their political influence has placed BRICS in the limelight. Russia’s relation with China and India under BRICS is another major highlight of BRICS, both positively and negatively. From a political perspective, BRICS bonds together three immediate neighbours – Russia, China and India. Though they are closely interconnected at the regional level in the RIC (Russia-India-China) structure, RIC has been overshadowed to some extent by BRICS’s rise and progress.2 BRICS’s dynamism for China is a matter of global importance, and the thesis links to the politics of multipolarism. In the view of many Chinese scholars, two vital trends may be noticed with the rise of a multipolar world order: first, intense global economic, trade and financial integration or alliance; and second, multipolarisation in global politics and international relations across the continents and
countries (Shen Qiang 2010: 35). In the Chinese perspective, BRICS’s rise has resulted in the relative decline of the influence and dominance of the US (ibid.). Chinese scholars further argue that with BRICS’s rise, American authoritative control over the three mainstream financial bodies – the WTO, IMF and the World Bank – has significantly eroded (ibid.). BRICS is a platform for China to associate with the developing world, most importantly with the emerging economies, and act in concert against the Western power blocs, especially against the US. India is seen in that context as a vital partnering country for China, though in limited scale, mainly in the context of economic multilateralism. The Indian undertaking of BRICS is important for a variety of reasons. First, currently, the Indian economy stands next to the Chinese economy. Second, India connects with individual BRICS countries on separate spectrums, both at regional and global levels. Through India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA), it is closely connected to both Brazil and South Africa at the intercontinental level; it is equally connected at the regional level with Russia and China in RIC. India is also attached to Brazil, South Africa and China in the BASIC climate forum. India will soon become formally a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in which both China and Russia are core members. Third, amongst BRICS countries, though India is seen as a ‘pro-Western’ country, its foreign policy dialogue has mostly been ‘South-South’ vis-à-vis developing-world centric, a central theme that remains core to the IBSA, BASIC and BRICS bearings. India’s course in BRICS has been more economic-centric, attempting to bring equity in the current global order in global governance issues. Reform of the global financial and political institutions has been one of the most demanding aspects of India’s approach within and outside BRICS. During the Plenary Session of the Fourth BRICS Summit in New Delhi, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his statement contemplated three specific things: (i) intraBRICS complementarity and cooperation; (ii) infrastructure development in developing countries; and (iii) addressing the deficiencies in global governance (pmindia.nic.in 2012b).
