Tishwash: Two days after the start of “BRICS” .. Iraq is absent from the largest global event “to get rid of the hegemony of the dollar”
Iraq will be absent from the “BRICS 2023” summit, which is the most prominent global event aimed at getting rid of the “dollar hegemony”, as it will be an international conference in which the heads of government of the five member states of the group will participate, in addition to leaders and representatives of about 50 countries, who are expected to attend the summit, which It will be hosted by South Africa, from 22 to 24 August
BRICS 2023 will be the 15th edition, and the rotating presidency will be assumed by the State of South Africa, whose President Cyril Ramaphosa has invited the leaders of 53 African countries out of 67 invitations to leaders in the world, none of whom are Western leaders .
BRICS expansion
The issue of BRICS expansion by including new members is one of the most important issues on the agenda of the upcoming BRICS 2023 summit, which will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa .
BRICS currently extends to 3 continents and includes 5 countries in its membership :
Russia .
China .
India.
Brazil .
South Africa .
Who will attend the summit of the leaders of the 5 countries?
South Africa confirmed that 4 of the leaders of the 5 member states of the group will attend in person, and they are :
Brazilian President Lula da Silva.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi .
Chinese President Xi Jinping .
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa .
Russia will be represented at the BRICS 2023 summit by a delegation headed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, while Russian President Vladimir Putin will participate, via video conference, on August 23 .
According to Russian reports, the upcoming “BRICS” summit is receiving great international attention, not only because of talk about the group’s expansion, but also because of the “economic summit”, which will be held on its last day .
And South Africa announced that “about 50 countries have confirmed their participation in the event, which will be the largest of its kind in the southern part of the globe, including Belarus, which is participating for the first time in the summit,” according to the report .
What are the countries that want to join BRICS or have asked to do so?
Naledi Pandor, South African Foreign Minister, said that “40 countries in the world have declared their desire to join the BRICS group, including 20 countries that have submitted formal requests to join .”
Among the most prominent countries that applied to join the “BRICS “:
Algeria .
Morocco .
Ethiopia .
Egypt .
Senegal .
Nigeria .
Argentina .
Turkey .
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia .
United Arab Emirates .
Iran .
Indonesia .
Cuba .
Bangladesh .
Mechanism for joining new members
All five BRICS member states support the cause of expanding the group’s membership, however, the details and rules for joining new members are still under discussion, until now .
While the issue of joining new members and its rules will be discussed during the meetings of the foreign ministers of the member states, the decision to approve the inclusion of any member will be made by the leaders of the countries of the group .
South African Foreign Minister says, “The summit seeks to have the ability to communicate the voice of developing countries and help them participate in global decision-making .”
Get rid of the dominance of the dollar
The upcoming “BRICS 2023” summit will focus on the issue of the world getting rid of the hegemony of the dollar. Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who heads the BRICS Development Bank, will participate in the summit to support the efforts of developing countries seeking to end global dependence on the dollar in remittances. between countries and each other and at the world level .
The Development Bank, founded by BRICS in 2015, has contributed to financing infrastructure, energy and water projects worth $33 billion so far, according to the report, which indicated that it could become a competitor to the World Bank and other Western financing institutions .
The UAE and Bangladesh joined the bank in 2021, while Egypt applied to join this year .
The report pointed out that “all five BRICS countries are pushing towards dealing in local currencies in trade exchanges, especially after the crisis of sanctions imposed by the United States of America and its Western allies against Russia, due to the Russian special military operation. ”
The report referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that “about 80 percent of trade exchanges between Moscow and Beijing took place, during the past year, using local currencies, with a value of $190 billion. ”
Supporting economic relations between Africa and the southern part of the world
This issue also represents one of the important issues on the “BRICS 2023” agenda, which aims to promote economic growth in African countries and support sustainable development efforts, and will include strengthening cooperation between “BRICS” countries and African countries .
Anil Soklal, South African ambassador to BRICS, said, “The first day will witness a business forum session in which the participating heads of state will deliver a speech before their closed meetings. Political geography, security issues, finance and the economy, while the second session includes representatives of the Business Council, the New Development Bank and the Businesswomen’s Alliance, so that a closing statement will be issued at the end of the summit .
Experts expect that “BRICS” will turn into a new “G-20” if it is able to overcome some challenges to become an influential global force link
CandyKisses: Brex Summit’: Will the World Change Afterwards?
Shafaq News/The World later BRICS summit on Tuesday (August 22), will not remain the same after. This is what China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa hope to say, as these countries alone make up about half of the world’s population, about 30% of global GDP, and more than 16% of the volume of global trade, and are betting on creating a multipolar world, a term that means breaking the “unipolarity” represented by the West, specifically the United States.
The 15th BRICS summit in Johannesburg will not be normal by all standards, as it is the first since the coronavirus pandemic, and its agenda is full of major issues in light of the global tension arising from the Ukrainian war, the escalation of underlying tensions in East Asia, and the readiness of proxy fighting fronts in the Sahel regions after the Niger coup.
But the most important thing is, observers say that the summit, to which 67 global leaders were invited, will make fateful decisions related to starting work to issue a common financial currency, which means seeking to exclude the US dollar from the throne of world currencies, in addition to promoting the use of local currencies of the five countries in commercial operations among themselves, and establishing a system of mechanisms for joint payments, in addition to studying membership applications by countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Algeria, Egypt and Argentina.
Politicians and observers say that the BRICS group’s progress towards these goals certainly means huge changes in the balance of power, and also indicates that the United States, which has been almost alone, over the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union, is gradually losing its political and economic, and perhaps military, as well.
While the U.S. military defense budget reached a record $858 billion, BRICS military spending currently stands at $400 billion, but it also has 11 million troops, in addition to about 6,500 nuclear bombs (possecurs of China, Russia and India).
Despite its image as a clutter that challenges Western hegemony, the prestige of BRICS has nevertheless suffered a setback after it failed to ensure the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin in person (he will participate through video technology) after South Africa came under Western pressure on the idea of his visit as Putin issued an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court regarding his role in the Ukraine war.
But Minister Sergei Lavrov will represent Moscow at the summit, while Chinese President Xi Jiping as well as the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa will attend. It was remarkable that the Johannesburg government deliberately announced recently that it had not invited French President Emmanuel Macron to attend the summit, although dozens of state leaders and governments will participate.
Even symbolically, BRICS is one of the most prominent indicators of the rise of alternative powers to the European-American duo that dominated international affairs over the past three centuries, and has taken a sharper turn since the American quasi-ination of controlling geopolitical conflicts politically and economically, after the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union in 1991.
Through its share of the global economy, BRICS outperforms the G7 share, and the BRICS countries currently represent 40% of the world’s area, which is certainly increasing if other countries join it, and since its launch at the summit level in 2009, it does not hide its quest to become a global economic power, break the unilateralism represented by the West under the leadership of the United States, and establish a multipolar world order.
Since South Africa’s late accession, BRICS has been known to have remained almost closed to new members, and it is now trying to open membership doors now. The new members will have to adhere to the goals of the group, including combating poverty and sustainable development, promoting economic and social integration, strengthening security and peace to ensure economic growth and political stability, reforming international financial institutions to have a greater voice for emerging countries, and enhancing food security.
Among the most indicative steps of autonomy and breaking U.S. unilateralism, observers say, China’s decision in 2013 to launch the “Belt and Road” initiative a few months later at the BRICS summit in the South African city of Durban in 2013. This trend can also be clearly seen in BRICS’ decision to open the New Development Bank during the group’s summit in the Russian city of Ufa in 2015, a bank, based in the Chinese city of Shanghai, where BRICS is betting to serve as an alternative to the World Bank institutions, which is the financial arm of Western hegemony globally, and has an estimated capital of about $100 billion.
According to figures from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), “foreign investment has played an important role in the growth of BRICS economies since 2001, with annual FDI inflows to the bloc more than quadrupled from 2001 to 2021 (from $84 billion to $355 billion) and contributed significantly to the formation of gross fixed capital.”
The BRICS summit in Russian St. Petersburg in November 2020, in partnership with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which serves as another alternative bloc to Western hegemony, and since 2001, has been another important indicator of the transformations underway globally, an organization officially joined by Iran last July. According to some analysts, BRICS serves as the “economic-to-valancal arm” of the Shanghai Organization, a phenomenon still under development.
During the past months, experts and observers have estimated that the Ukrainian war in which Russia was involved accelerated the movement of Moscow, Beijing, and other countries in BRICS towards ensuring financial independence away from the US dollar, especially after the world witnessed the speed and severity of sanctions, which were imposed on relations, commercial and economic interests and the property of Russians around the world, and was a warning bell that prompted the leaders of the group countries to search for new financial options, to get rid of the “authoritarianism” of the dollar, which was used many times to besiege the weakening of countries and peoples during the past few decades, as in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and others.
It can be said that the blocs and allies witnessed by the world, although they reflect a form of convergence in interests and goals and rapprochement between the countries of the bloc itself, but at the same time reflect the conflicts of major countries and the transition from grinding military wars, to the struggle for economic interests, to ensure continuity and survival prosperity, even at the expense of other countries or blocs, which are goals that sometimes inevitably require resorting to battlefronts and trenches.
If BRICS carries an indication of alternative blocs, history also says that the world has seen the rise and fall of other blocs, for example the Warsaw Pact (founded in 1955) to counter NATO, which represents Western Europe and the United States. The world also witnessed the fall of the so-called “Siato” Southeast Asian Nations, founded in 1954, with the support of Washington to counter Moscow’s influence.
The Baghdad Pact (founded in 1955) and annexed Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Britain and Pakistan, also fell to counter the Soviet expansion and the Nasserite revolution. There was also the “Rio Alliance” (1947), representing the first alliance of its kind after the end of the end of World War II and included countries of the Americas, but it is now with little influence under Washington’s absolute dominance.
However, there are global blocs that are still active in the year, besides NATO, which has existed since 1949, there is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the bloc of countries of the “Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership” formed in 2018 after the announcement of the United States’ exit from its founding nucleus by the administration of former President Donald Trump. The bloc includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam, and collectively accounts for about 15% of GDP globally.
There is also the Group of 7, the ECOS security alliance that has been bringing the United States together with Britain and Australia since 2021, in order to counter China’s influence, and there is the Quad Quad Quad Alliance (2007), which Washington is trying to strengthen with India, Australia and Japan, to also contribute to China’s encirclement and counter its influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
There is also the North American Free Trade Organization (NAFTA), the Southeast Asian Association (ASEAN), and the Five Eyes Alliance, which includes the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and coordinates with Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Norway, through intelligence and security cooperation.
In addition, there is the Common Market of South American States (MERCOSUR), the Arab Maghreb Union, the Baltic Free Trade Area, and the Commonwealth of Independent States, along with the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Special: Shafaq News Agency