Table of Contents

In a nutshell ..................................................................................................... 1
Diverse and conflicting priorities ................................................................ 2
Facts & figures ................................................................................................. 3
G7 vs. BRICS.................................................................................................................... 3

BRICS has limited operational capabilities .................................................. 3

Facts & figures ................................................................................................. 4
BRICS will grow to 11 members in 2024 ........................................................................... 4
Scenarios ......................................................................................................... 4
First scenario: Multi-alignment takes hold ....................................................................... 4
Second scenario: An ascendant China asserts its interests ............................................... 5
Third scenario: American primacy will persist .................................................................. 6
The prospects for balancing multi-alignment and engagement with the West .................. 7

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 Is Multi-Alignment A Path To Chaos Or Order?

A truly multipolar world would dilute the importance of China and the United States, but the two superpower
rivals are not going to cede influence easily.

From left, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African
President Cyril Ramaphosa and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend the 15th BRICS Summit in
Johannesburg, South Africa, on August 24, 2023.

In a nutshell
 Middle powers like India and Brazil seek independent foreign policies
 Expanding BRICS to 11 members and beyond will shift geopolitical realities

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 China uses the group to promote its interests and weaken the United States

Does multi-alignment provide middle powers with greater options for foreign policy, security
and defense? The reactions of states like India and Brazil to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle
East are based on their own perceived interests, rather than alignment with China, Russia or
the United States. Nevertheless, advocacy of multipolarity at a time of heightened tensions may
play into efforts by Beijing and Moscow to further undermine the Western-led international
order and boost their own global standing.

The planned enlargement of BRICS to 11 members in 2024 highlights these emerging trends.
This enlarged grouping will bring together states with almost a third of the world’s economic
output, nearly half the planet’s population and oil production and a quarter of global exports.
This development points to at least three possible outcomes: accelerating multipolarity, China’s
ascendency or persistent American global primacy.

The five current BRICS members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – agreed at their

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August summit in Johannesburg to expand the group with invitations to another six countries:
Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Several of these
countries can be considered middle powers, in terms both of geopolitical weight and of their
political oscillation between China and the United States.

BRICS members see the group as a counterweight to Western-sponsored intergovernmental

forums, such as the G7 and the G20, and as a boost to the pursuit of their own national
interests. BRICS enlargement has increased speculation about a broader shift to a multipolar or
multi-aligned world.

But Brazil and India were not enthusiastic about admitting new countries, which would reduce
their relative importance and distract attention from their own priorities, including their goal of
becoming permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Initially, South Africa
was also skeptical. In agreeing to add members, they gave in to Chinese pressure and
inducements.

For China, the grouping is a means to weaken the influence of the United States and to
strengthen its own international strategic and economic outreach. This reinforces China’s “no-
limits” partnership with Russia without involving a troublesome military alliance. Russia, faced
with growing sanctions following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, is looking for support from
BRICS and the Global South.

Diverse and conflicting priorities

The profiles and priorities of the 11 nations are diverse and often conflicting. They range from
richer and middle-income economies to poorer and developing countries. They include both
large exporters and large importers of commodities and energy. Nuclear-armed countries
gather with states possessing far less military power. Communist China will sit in expanded
BRICS meetings alongside theocracies, autocracies, democracies and secular states.
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China and India have a simmering border conflict. China is a leading arms supplier and de facto
ally of Pakistan, India’s historic adversary, while Russia is now India’s main source of crude oil.
India abandoned a regional trade agreement (RCEP) before it was signed because of security
and trade concerns arising from China’s membership. At the same time, New Delhi is seeking
closer links with the U.S., France, Greece and other Western countries. India stands to gain
from U.S. limitations on technology, trade and investment with China, which faces an
unprecedented economic slowdown.

The rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, brokered by China, remains fragile. Egypt’s
relations with Iran are strained, despite a tentative thaw. Ethiopia, the enlarged group’s
poorest member, is fraught with conflicts, not least with Egypt over Nile waters. Argentina is
dependent on the International Monetary Fund and U.S. backing to withstand its present
economic crisis. The two candidates who qualified in October for Argentina’s upcoming
presidential runoff election on November 19 are split on whether to join BRICS.

Facts & figures

G7 vs. BRICS

Even with the expansion of BRICS to 11 members, the G7 nations still have stronger economic might. The
gross domestic product figures are in trillions of dollars based on the International Monetary Fund’s
estimates for 2023.

BRICS has limited operational capabilities

BRICS lacks an institutional structure, unified market, standards-setting authority, budget and
secretariat. The BRICS New Development Bank operates on a far more limited scale than the
World Bank or European Investment Bank. The Brazilian president at the recent
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summit mooted the introduction of a BRICS currency. This idea has no foreseeable prospect,
with China as the second largest holder (after Japan) of U.S. Treasury bills. However, BRICS does
aim to increase mutual trade, with settlement in their own currencies alongside new digital
payment systems.

BRICS enlargement will make the respective interests of participants even more divergent. It
will remain a loose grouping with shifting patterns of cooperation and rivalry depending on the
issue at stake. Nonetheless, BRICS confers a sense of participation and prestige on less
influential participants and gives them a forum to talk with each other about global challenges.

In response to BRICS enlargement and increased Chinese and Russian involvement in the Global
South, Western states have stepped up their own efforts to court developing countries. The
expansion of the G20 to include the African Union, decided at the recent summit in New Delhi,
is a case in point.

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Facts & figures
BRICS will grow to 11 members in 2024

Five nations currently make up the BRICS forum. They are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Another six countries will join BRICS on January 1, 2024. They are Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Scenarios
First scenario: Multi-alignment takes hold

The premise of the first scenario is that BRICS, however limited operationally, exemplifies the
drift of the modern world toward multipolarity or multi-alignment. In this narrative, the Covid-
19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine accelerated the decline of the U.S.-led
international order. Proponents of this scenario call for the IMF, the World Bank, the World

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Trade Organization, the G7 and the United Nations Security Council to be overhauled to better
reflect current geopolitical realities.

Under this scenario, developing countries and middle powers like Brazil, Indonesia or Turkey,
are increasingly empowered to pursue their own interests, which often clash with those of
Western states and organizations. They adopt a pragmatic, transactional, multi-aligned posture,
increasingly taking their own stands on global and regional issues, whatever the positions of
Beijing, Moscow or Washington. They see pragmatic cooperation with states of any political
complexion, long practiced by great powers, as legitimate.

In this narrative, new international bodies like BRICS, the Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization better express their interests than Western-
sponsored structures. Participants are not discouraged by Chinese and Russian backing for such
arrangements because it comes without the human rights, environmental and governance
strings attached to Western assistance. They view economic development, better infrastructure
and poverty reduction as higher priorities than governance or climate goals. Advocates of this
approach claim that democracy follows development rather than vice versa.

Global South governments are uneasy about Russia’s war on Ukraine. Apart from the suffering
and damage caused, grain supplies have been disrupted and inflation given a new jolt. The
principles of national sovereignty and territorial integrity, defended by Ukraine, are crucial to
their own security and survival. But they see sanctions as harmful to their own interests and
often regard Russia’s role in the war as no more egregious than Western military interventions
in Vietnam, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere.

This scenario treats the world today as neither bipolar, as during the Cold War, nor unipolar, as
during the first 20 years after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. It is, rather, multipolar,
multi-layered or multi-aligned. In this setting, states are ready to be pragmatic on trade and
investment, foreign assistance and efforts to acquire armaments and advanced technology.

But multi-alignment is a self-contradictory term. Alignment implies the choice of an alliance or

orientation. This highlights a broader contradiction between a desire to shake off post-colonial
or post-imperial dominance and a willingness by middle powers to engage with major powers
whose principal goals are no less self-serving.

Second scenario: An ascendant China asserts its interests

Proponents of the multi-alignment scenario tend to depict China as mainly interested in

stability, cooperation, development and peace, echoing Chinese propaganda. But a second
scenario views China’s support for multipolarity, including initiatives such as BRICS, as a means
to promote its own interests rather than shared regional or global goals. There is a widespread
perception in Washington that China aims for hegemony in the Indo-Pacific , though
some China watchers question this ambition.

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Beijing seems to favor an international configuration in which no single state is dominant. It was
uncomfortable with the unipolar moment of U.S. strategic superiority that followed the
collapse of the Soviet Union and rejects bipolarity, or a new Cold War, as the future basis for
international relations. In this narrative, Beijing’s outreach to developing countries and middle
powers is part of a drive to raise its own profile, play down Western-led international forums
and to create alternative networks in which its own role is predominant.

China’s instruments of choice for expanding its international influence are trade and
investment, notably in infrastructure and advanced technology, although its military capabilities
are also steadily growing. Its investments generally involve little transfer of technology, local
employment or help with sustainable development. But investment by Chinese firms is
welcomed in Asia, Africa and Latin America as free from the strings attached to Western
concessionary finance and development assistance. Beijing rejects the claim that it uses debt
dependency as a means to attain political control. It is gradually adopting soft power vehicles

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like education, training and culture and supporting regional cooperation projects in Africa and
elsewhere.

China’s questionable status as a developing country as well as its preference for economic
influence over risky foreign adventures enhance its credibility with the Global South, a term
embraced by Beijing. BRICS is widely cited as emblematic of this approach. Yet China can
scarcely be regarded as a mere first among equals in BRICS and other international settings
sponsored by Beijing. China’s size, economic and technological prowess, critical resources,
foreign direct investment, nuclear status and mounting military capabilities ensure it a
preeminent role.

China has a 70 percent share of the BRICS gross domestic product and a 50 percent share of its
internal trade, although these will fall somewhat with the accession of wealthy Gulf energy
producers. But members find BRICS sufficiently supportive of their own interests and opinions
for them to overlook China’s dominant position in the grouping.

Yet China faces not only an unprecedented economic slowdown but also a subsidy and critical-
resources war with Europe and the U.S., especially in green technologies, with increasing trade
and technological restrictions. If, as with its previous zero-Covid policy, this gives rise to
domestic discontent, Beijing may react by increasing repression at home and cranking up
tensions abroad. Yet it is also ready to explore the scope for conciliation with Washington to
reduce tensions that harm its economy.

Third scenario: American primacy will persist

In this third scenario, the U.S. retains its military, economic and technological preeminence,
with the dollar unchallenged as the principal trade currency and repository of wealth. China
is wavering and may not soon become the world’s largest economy, given its current
slowdown.

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Several key BRICS countries continue to rely on the U.S. for their security and prefer to hold
Beijing and Moscow at arm’s length. As evidence, U.S. and French arms exports to Asia and
other areas of political strife have increased considerably in recent years, whereas Russia’s have
fallen substantially.

Under this scenario, the U.S. pushes back against Beijing’s appeal to middle powers by
strengthening its own cooperation with countries in the Indo-Pacific.

The U.S. wants to revitalize the G7, from which Russia was suspended after its illegal
annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the G20, whose recent inclusion of the African Union stole
the thunder from China’s success in enlarging BRICS. Like China, the U.S. increasingly favors
forums, networks and informal structures in the Indo-Pacific. This appeals to the nonaligned
who are wary of China’s ascendancy but want to keep their distance from Washington as well.
It also avoids ratification battles in the U.S. Senate.

Washington has created a network of partnerships to promote international cooperation and

discourage Beijing from risk-taking in the Indo-Pacific. These include the Quadrilateral Security
Dialogue, composed of Australia, India, Japan and the United States; AUKUS, the trilateral
security partnership among Australia, the UK and the U.S., involving the sale of nuclear-
powered submarines to Australia; as well as the “I2U2,” which promotes economic cooperation
among India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the U.S. At the same time, the U.S. has
reinforced its strategic partnership with Vietnam, which is a bulwark against Chinese expansion
in the South China Sea, and its dialogue with the Philippines.

Such initiatives, and those forged by American allies France and the UK as well as the European
Union, convey to Beijing and Moscow that the West will continue to engage in the Indo-Pacific
and adjoining regions. This display of determination is intended both as deterrence and as an
incentive to Beijing to reduce tensions and to explore the scope for cooperation.

The prospects for balancing multi-alignment and engagement with the West

The international system will display aspects of each of these three scenarios in the years
ahead. Middle powers will seek to leverage their comparative advantages to the fullest,
challenging or cooperating with major powers depending on the issues at stake. China’s
assertiveness, clothed in the language of multipolarity, will continue to grow, whenever this
reinforces internal political control by the ruling elite. The military, economic and technological
preeminence of the United States will persist, increasingly challenged by China. But unless the
U.S. succumbs to isolationism following elections in 2024, it will show more readiness than in
the past to engage with governments of different complexions, including those opting for multi-
alignment.

The U.S. and its allies can counterbalance China’s influence on middle powers by showing that
they are committed to long-term involvement in the Indo-Pacific, Africa and Latin America. The
best way to encourage middle powers to maintain a multi-aligned approach, which includes

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cooperation with the West, is to increase investment in these regions, which, in turn, requires a
stable business environment.

Overall, the scenarios envisioning multi-alignment as a new norm and persistent American
predominance are the most probable over the coming decades. China’s influence in the Global
South and beyond will continue to grow. But pushback from the U.S. and its allies, China’s
internal challenges and the tradition of a China-centric Middle Kingdom mean that its global
ascendency will be largely confined to certain sectors.

Editor’s Note: This report is based on research for a workshop organized by Kings College
London and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna in
October 2023.

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