, Columnist
The BRICS Are Neither the Anti-West Nor a Bloc
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa can keep holding summits. Geopolitically, that still won’t make them a thing.
Looks fun already.
Photographer: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP via Getty Images
This article is for subscribers only.
The US and its Western allies should take the pomp and posturing at this week’s BRICS summit in Johannesburg with a shaker’s worth of salt.
Sure, that “bloc” — comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — represents more than 40% of the world’s population, and other countries in the Global South may yet join. The BRICS also like to present themselves as a sort of non- or anti-West geopolitical alternative to US hegemony. But they’re not, and never will be.