What to expect from the 14th BRICS Summit in China

The capitals of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are actively preparing for the 14th summit, which will be held in China in the summer. A possible venue for the summit is the city of Guangzhou. As Chinese President Xi Jinping noted, "over the past 15 years, BRICS has strengthened strategic communication and political trust."

Many politicians state that the current venue of the summit is of particular importance against the backdrop of the rapidly changing geopolitical situation in the world, when all participants in this historical process are faced with a serious choice in developing new political approaches and further strategies for development and international cooperation.

Recording this factor, the British newspaper The Telegraph believes that the 14th summit of the BRICS heads of state will have historical significance, since "it will mark the decline of the era of globalisation and the division of the world into competing economic, political, and possibly even military blocs, between which spheres of influence will be distributed."

The agenda of the "Chinese summit" is still being developed. It is obvious that it will include discussion of the most sensitive issues of global development, which will be a kind of test of the strength of the experience of interaction that has been accumulated thanks to the established trusting relations of the top leadership of the five countries. Therefore, Beijing will probably take all measures to ensure that the BRICS summit is held in the established format of the leaders’ personal meeting of the "five" host.

China, as the "host" of the summit, can also invite representatives of a number of developing countries to participate in the work within the framework of the “BRICS Plus” concept. Now it is difficult to make assumptions about which countries can receive such an invitation. However, it is likely that the choice will be made in favour of the partners on the Belt and Road initiative, who can be considered as candidates for inclusion in the New Development Bank.

This is not a coincidence, since this year the deadline for updating the strategy of the New Development Bank is approaching, and China considers innovation in the field of the industrial revolution to be its main priority. It will also come up with a number of breakthrough initiatives that will give a new impetus to the BRICS partnership and will be focused on achieving practical results of cooperation in the context of escalating relations with the West. In this regard, it is planned to hold over 100 events that will cover more than 30 different areas.

The summit will certainly discuss the Ukrainian crisis, which has led to a kind of "tectonic geopolitical shift in the world." The outlines of future alliances have already clearly appeared on the world map when the West excluded Russian banks from the SWIFT system, and in response it was precisely the Chinese UnionPay that intervened to help Russia with the processing of trade and foreign payments.

Thus at the BRICS summit in China, new payment systems, the creation of their own rating agencies and, in general, an autonomous from the West financial infrastructure will be discussed. For the first time in the 15-year existence of BRICS, the leaders will not be limited only to trade and economic issues, but will resolutely move on to defining common positions on global finance (this zone has always been a "sanctuary" of the West) and world politics - up to the prospects for UN reform and international security issues.

In this way, BRICS will move towards strengthening a powerful global bloc of like-minded states that raise world-level problems, up to "improving the global governance system."

Elena Panina, Director of the RUSSTRAT Institute