Commentary: An expanded BRICS could reset world politics but picking new members isn’t straightforward

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We are political scientists whose research interests include changes to the global order and emerging alternative centres of power. In our view, it won’t be easy to expand the bloc. That’s because the group is still focused on harmonising its vision, and the potential new members do not readily make the cut.

Some may even bring destabilising dynamics for the current composition of the formation. This matters because it tells us that the envisioned change in the global order is likely to be much slower.

Simply put, while some states are opposed to Western hegemony, they do not yet agree among themselves on what the new alternative should be.

EVOLUTION OF BRICS

BRICS’ overtly political character partially draws on a long history of non-alignment as far back as the Bandung Conference of 1955. It was attended mostly by recently decolonised states and independence movements intent on asserting themselves against Cold War superpowers – the Soviet Union and the United States.

BRICS has come to be viewed as challenging the hegemony of the US and its allies, seen as meddling in the internal affairs of other states.

Reuters estimates that more than 40 states are aspiring to join BRICS. South African diplomat Anil Sooklal says 13 had formally applied by May. Many, though not all, of the aspiring joiners have this overtly political motivation of countering US hegemony.

The other important incentive is access to funds from the BRICS’ New Development Bank. This is especially pronounced in the post-COVID climate in which many economies are yet to fully recover. Of course the two can overlap, as in the case of Iran.

The notable applicants have included Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Ethiopia, Argentina, Algeria, Iran, Mexico and Turkey.

EXPANDED BRICS

A strategically expanded BRICS would be seismic for the world order, principally in economic terms.

Key among the club’s reported priorities is reduction of reliance on the US dollar (“de-dollarisation” of the global economy). One of the hurdles to this is the lack of buy-in by much of the world. Though some states may disagree with the dollar’s dominance, they still see it as the most reliable.

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Commentary: The Global South is on the rise – but what exactly is it?

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Until then, the more common term for developing nations – countries that had yet to industrialise fully – was “Third World”.

That term was coined by Alfred Sauvy in 1952, in an analogy with France’s historical three estates: The nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie. The term “First World” referred to the advanced capitalist nations; the “Second World”, to the socialist nations led by the Soviet Union; and the “Third World”, to developing nations, many at the time still under the colonial yoke.

Sociologist Peter Worsley’s 1964 book The Third World: A Vital New Force In International Affairs further popularised the term. The book also made note of the Third World forming the backbone of the Non-Aligned Movement, which had been founded just three years earlier as a riposte to bipolar Cold War alignment.

Though Worsley’s view of this Third World was positive, the term became associated with countries plagued by poverty, squalor and instability. Third World became a synonym for banana republics ruled by tinpot dictators – a caricature spread by Western media.

The fall of the Soviet Union – and with it the end of the so-called Second World – gave a convenient pretext for the term “Third World” to disappear, too. Usage of the term fell rapidly in the 1990s.

Meanwhile “developed”, “developing” and “underdeveloped” also faced criticism for holding up Western countries as the ideal, while portraying those outside that club as backwards.

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Commentary: US, China and a Cold War lesson to apply ‘rules of the road’ at sea

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Even allowing for the 12 nautical mile (22km) territorial seas claimed off the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, and adjacent small islands, given the breadth of the Taiwan Strait legally it is one in which there exists either an exclusive economic zone or a high seas corridor.

Unlike Bass Strait, Torres Strait, and the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, the Taiwan Strait is not governed by certain provisions of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that recognise the right of transit passage through recognised “international straits”. 

The Taiwan Strait is so wide that there is no need for passing vessels to enter the territorial sea, and consistent with UNCLOS exclusive economic zone or high seas navigation can safely be undertaken through the middle of the strait.

AN INTERNATIONAL MARITIME HIGHWAY

The strait is therefore effectively a form of international maritime highway because of its breadth. The US position that high seas freedoms of navigation apply in the Taiwan Strait is a view shared by other foreign navies, including Australia. 

The so-called maritime “rules of the road” in this instance are embedded in the COLREGS (Collision Regulations), which lay down accepted practices and standards for how all shipping is to conduct itself so as to avoid collisions at sea. 

These rules are ones that navies apply and respect during peacetime, and are generally considered to be the baseline standard of professional conduct for all mariners at sea.

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Commentary: Why Southeast Asia should care about the 2024 elections in Taiwan

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During that period, the DPP administration had obtained US approval to acquire eight diesel electric submarines. However, the budget for this acquisition was unable to pass due to the KMT-led pan-blue majority in parliament. Therefore, the composition of the Legislative Yuan bears watching as well.  

2024 ELECTION HAS BEARING ON CROSS-STRAIT TIES 

Due to Taiwan’s strategic location within the so-called “first island chain” and its status as a potential flashpoint between the US and China, the outcome of the 2024 election in Taiwan will have implications for both cross-strait ties and US-China rivalry. 

Lai, for example, has emphasised his commitment to upholding President Tsai Ing-wen’s “status-quo approach” to cross-strait relations, as well as her efforts in strengthening US-Taiwan relations and fostering ties with democratic nations worldwide.

He has also expressed his intention to enhance Taiwan’s self-defence capabilities, stressing that true peace can only be achieved by being able to defend oneself with strength. 

Despite Lai’s repeated assertions on preserving the status quo, it is likely that Beijing will maintain its assertive stance towards Taiwan under a Lai presidency. 

Hou, on the other hand, is likely to receive a more positive response from Beijing as he represents the traditionally China-friendly KMT. However, his foreign policy and national security platform is still being fleshed out.

While he has publicly rejected both the “One Country, Two Systems” formula and Taiwan independence, he has yet to comment on the 1992 consensus that former president Ma Ying-jeou (2000 to 2008) committed to, which states that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China.

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Commentary: 70 years after the first ascent of Everest, the impact of mass mountaineering must be confronted

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HAIKOU, Hainan: Mountains – their height, their mass, their climates and ecosystems – have fascinated humans for thousands of years. But there is one that holds extra special meaning for many – Mount Everest, or Chomolungma as the Nepalese Sherpa people call it.

A sacred mountain for some, for others the world’s highest peak represents a challenge and a lifelong dream. Seventy years ago, on May 29, 1953, that challenge and dream became reality for two members of a British expedition: New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the 8,848.86m summit.

Their achievement was a testament to endurance and determination. It was also the crowning glory of the British expedition’s nationalistic motivations on the eve of the young Queen Elizabeth’s coronation.

From our vantage in the present, it also represents a high point, not just in climbing terms, but in what we now think of as the modern era of mountaineering. Since then, mountaineering has become massively popular and commercial – with serious implications for the cultures and environments that sustain it.

SCALING THE HEIGHTS

The early mountaineering era began in 1786 when Jaques Balmat and Michel Paccard reached the summit of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the European Alps at 4,808m. From 1854 to 1899 (known as the classic mountaineering period), advances in climbing technology saw ascending peaks by challenging routes become possible and popular.

During the modern era from 1900 to 1963, mountaineers pushed further into the Andes Cordillera in South America, explored polar mountains and began high-altitude climbing in Central Asia.

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Commentary: G7 summit in Hiroshima will force world leaders to confront the continuing nuclear threat

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In the aftermath of the bombing, both the Japanese military government and the US occupation sought to erase any mention of the seismic event, denying the lethal effects of the bomb on the human body and censoring survivors’ stories.

As Kyoko Gibson, 75, who lives in the UK but is from Hiroshima, said recently in a talk: “Can you imagine if you had to watch those you care for undergoing excruciating suffering”? The hibakushas were determined not to be seen simply as victims and submit to becoming the unfortunate collateral damage of Japan’s surrender on Aug 15, 1945.

Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe described in successive autobiographical works how his life was changed for the better by a conversation with a hibakusha he interviewed for his 1965 book Hiroshima Notes. He went on to champion their cause throughout his life, arguing that the chief lesson of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a lesson in self-reflection.

If they listen to the harrowing stories of survivors in Hiroshima, the G7 leaders might find, emotionally and rationally, that signing up for Kishida’s action plan and an attendant agreement on the policy of no-first-use is the only moral option.

This could help create much-needed space for proper debate across divides. Will they take this opportunity?

At the moment the biggest threat to world peace is arguably still what philosopher Bertrand Russell and physicist Albert Einstein described in 1955 as the threat to us all: Weapons of mass destruction. The stories of Hiroshima’s hibakushas should stand as an enduring warning against this grave human folly.

Elizabeth Chappell is PhD Candidate in the Department of English Language & Literature at the Open University. This commentary first appeared on The Conversation.

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Commentary: In pursuing peace, Japan’s leader must also prepare for war

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In US President Joe Biden, Kishida has a counterpart who believes in old-fashioned diplomacy and a rules-based order, and has displayed the kind of nerve on Chinese expansionism that was singularly lacking when he was Barack Obama’s vice president and Beijing was militarising islands in the South China Sea. US support is one of the reasons Kishida has been able to lift a decades-old cap on defence spending.

Until recently, such a move would have been met with suspicion across the Pacific. Now, the US ambassador has hailed it as starting a “new era in the defence of democracy”. While the prime minister’s office may not have been happy with a Time magazine cover featuring Kishida in which said he wanted to “abandon decades of pacifism”, the premier has nonetheless found himself at a point in time when Japan’s geopolitical significance is surging.

SECURITY AT THE FOREFRONT OF G7 

With the G7 taking place in a country that borders Russia and would be on the frontlines of a conflict over Taiwan, security will be at the top of the agenda. And while Kishida will seek agreement on a statement supporting the elimination of nuclear weapons, he’ll know that progress on denuclearisation has rarely seemed more distant.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the stakes. Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, threatened earlier this year that the West’s move to supply weapons to Ukraine was bringing a “nuclear apocalypse” closer. Kyiv – which briefly had the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal – gave up the weapons on its territory in 1994 after the fall of the Soviet Union, in exchange for security guarantees. 

It is incumbent on G7 leaders to make a strong commitment to continued military and financial support for Ukraine to ensure there isn’t a resurgent interest in nuclear weapons as a way of safeguarding sovereignty and independence. 

In the case of North Korea, that’s too late, with Pyongyang undeniably having become a fully-fledged nuclear power over the past decade. And that in turn has led South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to recently suggest his country might need to develop atomic weapons, though he has since backed off the idea following a visit to Washington.

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Commentary: Understanding China’s foreign policy, beyond protocol and alcohol

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NEW DELHI: There are phases in international relations when diplomacy between some countries is unfortunately reduced to protocol and alcohol. Such phases are never entirely intentional. No well-meaning government conducts diplomacy just for the sake of talking.

However, structural limitations appear like mighty boulders on the path to reach reasonable agreements. Countries in the Indo-Pacific are undergoing one such phase with respect to their negotiations with China.

Diplomacy, in its quintessential sense, is the adjustment of differences through dialogue. Diplomacy works when a general equilibrium prevails in the international order. Put loosely, compromise is imminently possible when political leaders across countries intuitively understand and accept their place in the pecking order.

However, when a revisionist power is disgruntled with the established order, expecting it to be a reasonable negotiator is unwise.

NEW PECKING ORDER IN ASIA

The regional order in Asia is undergoing constant churn. China’s proclaimed ambitions to dominate Asia have altered the strategic landscape. Under the successive leadership of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, Beijing sold the narrative of its peaceful rise to the world.

China’s dizzying growth was in the West’s interests, so the story went. We owe a great deal to President Xi Jinping for reminding us that economics and politics are essentially intertwined. Prosperity begets power. Power protects prosperity.

The mandarins of Zhongnanhai calculate that China’s phenomenal economic, political and technological growth has significantly increased the potential benefits and decreased the potential costs to China for seeking a change in Asia’s strategic landscape.

Put simply, Beijing believes that the benefits of a new Sino-centric Asia outweigh the costs of disrupting the old Asian order. This must be considered before expecting anything substantial while negotiating with China.

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Commentary: Why so many South Korean women are refusing to date, marry or have kids

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The government has created gender quotas in certain industries to try to unravel this system of gendered citizenship.

For instance, some government jobs have minimum gender quotas for new hires, and the government encourages the private sector to implement similar policies. In historically male-dominant industries, such as construction, there are quotas for female hires, while in historically female-dominant industries, such as education, there are male quotas.

In some ways, this has only made things worse. Each gender feels as if the other is receiving special treatment due to these affirmative action policies. Resentment festers.

“THE GENERATION THAT HAS GIVEN UP”

Today, the sense of competition between young men and women is exacerbated by the soaring cost of living and rampant unemployment.

Called the N-Po Generation, which roughly translates as “the generation that has given up”, many young South Koreans don’t think they can achieve certain milestones that previous generations took for granted: Marriage, having kids, finding a job, owning a home and even friendships.

Although all genders find themselves discouraged, the act of “giving up” has caused more problems for women. Men see women who forgo marriage and having kids as selfish. And when they then try to compete against men for jobs, some men become incensed.

Many of the men who have become radicalised commit digital sex crimes to take revenge on women who, in their view, have abandoned their duties.

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Commentary: What does China hope to achieve from peace plans for Saudi-Iran, Russia-Ukraine and Afghanistan?

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The force of these more interventionist points is otherwise thoroughly neutered. The paper denounces the “enormous losses” caused by attempted “democratic transformation”, while declaring Beijing’s respect for Taliban rule, cynically couched as the “independent choices made by the Afghan people”.

These statements are combined with professions of categorical respect for Afghanistan’s sovereignty, and a disavowal of “external interference” and “unilateral sanctions”. A special mention is given to the freezing of Afghan Central Bank holdings, which Beijing, with some justification, notes are undermining Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation.

The tenor of the position paper makes clear that China’s priority remains counterterrorism, specifically combatting the Uyghur separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Blandishments offered in exchange for Taliban suppression of ETIM include counterterrorism assistance, “reconstruction”, and sizeable infrastructure investment.

This is essentially a reprisal of the carrot and no sticks formula that Beijing has offered the Taliban since the US withdrawal in August 2021. Both sides have arguably failed to deliver. China has only very recently announced its first sizeable Afghan investment. According to a 2022 UN Security Council Report, despite some Taliban efforts at restraint, ETIM has otherwise “rebuilt several strongholds”, purchased weapons and “expanded its area of operations”.

CONSERVATIVE STANCE

A keen student of the failure of successive foreign interventions in Afghanistan, China remains extremely wary of entanglement in Afghanistan. Even if China’s calculus were to change, Beijing’s scope for intervention would likely be hidebound by its extensive rhetoric on the primacy of sovereignty, and opposition to sanctions and foreign interference.

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