On the eve of the opening of the BRICS Summit, Neue Zurich Zeitung published a commentary and wrote that the strength of the BRICS Group, which already has 11 member states, cannot be underestimated: its population accounts for more than half of the world's total population, and its economic aggregate accounts for 40% of global economic output. In comparison, the Western G7 is much inferior: its population accounts for less than 10% of the world's total population, and its economy accounts for only 30% of the world. The economic growth rate of the BRICS countries is three times that of the G7. However, the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" commentary still believes that the BRICS group will not become a strong alliance:
"In fact, the BRIC Group is an accidental product. The origin of the name BRICS is very telling. In 2001, a British economist believed that Brazil, Russia, India and China would be the main engines of global economic growth and would dominate the global economy in 2050. For convenience, he abbreviated the acronyms of the four countries as BRIC. Later, with the addition of South Africa, the abbreviation became BRICS.
Five years later, it was not until the first meeting of the four founding foreign ministers that the 'BRICS' was given some political color. To this day, the organizational structure of the BRICS Group is still very loose, with no formal founding document, headquarters or permanent secretariat. Member states take turns serving as chairpersons for a period of one year. The current chairmanship is India.
The original demand of the founding countries was to have greater say in the framework of today's international order. However, all parties have no consensus on how to establish an international order that is less Western.
As a democratic country, it was puzzling from the beginning that India and two authoritarian powers, China and Russia, would join the BRIC. In fact, the reason why New Delhi does this is to prevent China and Russia from uniting to deal with India: joining the BRIC and participating in discussions is obviously safer for India.
In the past period of time, US President Trump has been almost unwilling to miss any opportunity to hurt the self-esteem of the Indian nation. The US-India relations that have been carefully built over the years have also been seriously damaged. In this context, the BRICS clearly gives Modi a perfect opportunity to warn the United States: India also has other options. "
Neue Zürcher Zeitung commented that as the number of BRICS member states continues to increase, its influence and international reputation are also increasing. However, the increase in the number of member states has also made the dilemma of "difficult to reconcile" within the BRICS increasingly prominent: after endless discussions, all parties can often only reach a minimum consensus in the end.
“The BRICS New Delhi Summit provides a platform for all parties to demonstrate a different order from the United States and the West. Numerous bilateral talks during the summit also led to some concrete results. But the BRICS is by no means a powerful anti-Western alliance, not now, and perhaps never will be in the future. "
Regarding the BRICS summit held in New Delhi over the weekend, the Daily wrote:
“China and India are both striving for influence in the ‘global South’, while Russia is more committed to confronting the West. Since its establishment in 2006, the BRICS Group has undergone significant changes. What started as a cooperative mechanism composed of Brazil, Russia, China and India has now grown into a huge group with 11 member countries, development banks and ten partner countries.
However, the expansion of the group's size will certainly not make internal conflicts less severe. This New Delhi summit finally led to a meeting between Iranian President Pezhiziyan and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. In the past period, Iran has repeatedly launched attacks on US military bases in the United Arab Emirates.
Happymon Jacob, an Indian political scientist, said that the BRICS will not become a counterforce to the international order led by the G7 or the United States, because the member states have neither a common vision of the international order nor the corresponding mechanisms to maintain this order. For India, more importantly, Russia is no longer the focus of India's diplomacy, but only one of its many partners. As C. Raja Mohan, an expert on Indian diplomacy, said: The greatest contribution of India’s diplomatic efforts is to make those grand narratives about establishing a new international order seem ordinary. "
