ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the potential role of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) in Asia-Pacific affairs. The rising importance of Asian powers on the global stage shows the trend of an Asian agenda within the BRICS framework, although the agenda on Asian affairs remains weak. The upgrading of the Group of 20 ministerial meetings to leader-level summits in 2008 was mainly to deal with the global financial crisis by mobilizing the resources and wisdom of major emerging economies, which included the BRICS countries. Terrorism also caught the attention of the BRICS from the first summit hosted by Russia in 2009. Terrorist attacks in Russia and India were mentioned in summit documents in 2010. Russia invited its co-members of the Eurasian Economic Union and partners from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to the BRICS summit in Ufa in 2015.
