BRICS brings out mixed outcome

The just-concluded eighth summit of the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) group of emerging economies at Goa ended with mixed results. On the plus side, BRICS members had reason to celebrate with the grouping’s New Development Bank announcing the approval of the first set of loans worth US$ 1 billion for renewable energy projects in BRICS countries and the issuance of the first set of green bonds in Chinese RMB. The operationalisation of BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangements, which was also announced at the Goa meet, is another reason for satisfaction as it is aimed at strengthening the global financial safety net. This is not a small achievement. The Association of South East Asian Nations’ Chiang Mai initiative is yet to begin disbursing loans, although it is far older than BRICS. At the Goa summit, BRICS leaders were on the same page on several global issues, including terrorism, ending the war in Syria, the situation in Afghanistan etc. Disappointingly, the Goa summit did not witness the signing of an agreement on the setting up of a BRICS credit approval agency. However, this was not because of unbridgeable gaps in positions of member nations. While BRICS members remain keen and committed to free their economies from the monopoly of western credit approval agencies, more talks are needed before they sign the pact.

The Goa summit was dominated by the terrorism problem. This was inevitable given the fact that the meeting was held in the shadow of a major terror attack on the summit host – India. Without naming Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi drew attention repeatedly to the problem of cross-border terrorism. India’s diplomacy at Goa was preoccupied with getting BRICS on board its effort to isolate Pakistan on the question of its support of anti-India terrorism. However, India’s strategy met with limited success only. While the Goa Declaration used strong language to condemn terrorism and called on countries to ensure their territory is not being used for terrorist activities, it did not name Pakistan or terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba, which have repeatedly targeted India. Indeed, the declaration refrained from even using the term ‘cross-border terrorism.’ All these apparently because the multilateral grouping did not want to get bogged down with bilateral differences coming to the fore. 

While India’s concern over cross-border terrorism is understandable, using the BRICS forum to isolate Pakistan was not a well-conceived strategy. Did Delhi expect China to abandon Pakistan to get on board the Indian move to isolate Pakistan among BRICS members? When Chinese obstruction was expected, India could have avoided making Pakistan the single focus of its diplomatic energies in Goa. That way, the Goa BRICS summit could have been a bigger success.