We hear lately about a movement of the tectonic plates in global geopolitics, especially with the tacit support of China for Russia in the war in Ukraine and with the recent visit of the Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, in Beijing. All events that seem to support the idea of a major strengthening of certain emerging countries (united under the BRICS organization) against the influence of the West and its imperialism in the world.
We have known for forty years that developing countries, especially China, will compete fiercely with the United States and Western Europe on the world political and economic chessboard. However, it is dangerous to immediately sign the West’s death warrant without considering several other elements.
We must first point out that the BRICS organization is made up of nations with very different cultures and political regimes, unlike the countries that make up the West, and that only commercial ties, arms sales and contempt for Westerners unite them. It would also be naive to believe that this beautiful concord between these countries will not experience friction due to rivalries between them. Let us remember that there have already been border clashes between China and Russia as well as India in the past.
In addition, the Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, recently put on the table the idea of a currency to compete with the American dollar. In the best-case scenario, the Chinese yuan could provide an alternative currency, but the great emancipation aspirations of the other BRICS participants could thus disappear under the imperial tendencies of the new rising power on the international scene, which will not allow itself to be outdoing the pawn so easily in its economic and geopolitical conquest of the globe, which is already well underway.
We can also wonder about the kind of development model that the BRICS offer to other emerging countries as a replacement for Western neo-colonialism. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are far from being paragons of virtue when it comes to human rights, democracy or the fight against corruption — which would be equivalent, in the end, for the peoples of other emerging countries, to exchanging an old master for a new one…