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51 CHAPTER 2 BRICS: A New Cooperation Model on the Horizon Huang Ying1 S ince its first summit held in Yekaterinburg, Russia in June 2009, only two months after the second G20 summit in London, the BRICS group of countries has drawn widespread international attention. Since then, government officials, policy analysts and scholars around the world have been busy gauging the weight, significance and potential transformative power of this newly formed group. However, the BRICS seems a mechanism of great controversy, disliked by many, loved by more. In fact, the notion of the BRICS is so heavily loaded with geostrategic implications, that it’s almost impossible for any analyst to remain absolutely unaffected by his or her own ideological disposition when sizing up this new group. Proponents tend to emphasise the positive side of the group, while sceptics usually exaggerate the discords and disputes among the members. This sharp divergence in the opinions on the BRICS can be explained partly by the fact that the group represents a completely new cooperation model for the emerging powers in international relations, which may possess great potential to reshape the global pattern in the post-crisis era. After five summits and nearly four years of development, perhaps it is time to assess the strategic importance, the actual performance and the momentum of the group. After examining the unique nature of the BRICS, this chapter uses an ‘IAIE’ analytical framework to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of the group. Finally, some suggestions are made to broaden and deepen the cooperation among the five countries. A NEW COOPERATION MODEL IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS The BRICS is no traditional international group. It is not a military alliance. It has no common enemy to fight. It is not a democratic group, according to the Western standard. The five members are scattered in different corners 52 CHAPTER 2 of the world and their economies are more integrated with the West than with each other. In many aspects, the BRICS is different from the international groups we have known. The BRICS is a group formed by a few emerging powers. The emerging powers, an alias for big developing countries with great economic potential, used to stick to the ‘non-alliance policy’, and preferred to act collectively with many other developing countries when calling for a more just and equal international order. When the leaders of Yugoslavia, Egypt and India first initiated the concept of ‘non-alliance’ in 1956, it was mainly used by the developing countries to avoid choosing sides between the two superpowers. In the Cold War, the big developing countries often sought to enhance their fame and influence by playing a leading or active role in big groups such as the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’ or the G77, rather than forming a small group. After the end of the Cold War, the interactions among the sole superpower and four other global powers, namely the US, EU, Japan, Russia and China, became the main driving force for the global strategic pattern. Also during this period, a dozen developing countries embarked on a swift growth path, but never seriously considered joining their forces. They attached great importance to their bilateral ties with the developed countries while busy pursuing their own regional integration plans. The outbreak of the 2008 international financial crisis, however, accelerated and upgraded the cooperation among the emerging powers. The crisis helped to transform the BRICS from a pure economic concept, invented in 2001 by an American investment banker to help sell his investment plan, to an eye-catching international group. The BRICS has a unique historical mission. Before its first summit, the five countries took part in two G20 summits amid the raging of the international financial storm. They were asked to answer important questions such as what the root causes of the international financial crisis were, how they would propose making global governance more responsive to the crisis, how they could help fight off the possible world recession and so on. These questions, strategic in nature, endowed the five countries with a sense of mission: at this important historical juncture the big powers had to work together. Unlike their developed counterparts who refused to discuss the systemic defects exposed by the financial crisis, the BRICS countries agreed that the international community should advance the reform of the international financial order and set up an effective long-term mechanism for the development of the global economy. In this regard, the BRICS resembles the G7 and the G20. When...

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