The fact that five Southeast Asian countries are seeking to join BRICS should not be seen as an affront to the West and its so-called rule-based order.
There has been much talk about ASEAN countries like Malaysia and Thailand joining BRICS – an intergovernmental organisation comprising major developing economies. The original members of BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — have now expanded to ten members to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Reportedly, more than 40 countries have expressed interest in joining the grouping.
The expanded BRICS (or BRICS+) represents 45 per cent of the global population, 25 per cent of global trade, 40 per cent of global oil production, and 28 per cent of global GDP. These are impressive statistics that would, at least on paper, entice countries to join the grouping at the drop of a hat. Beyond economic benefits, BRICS+ is seen as a hedging vehicle for countries looking for alternatives to the West’s so-called rules-based order.
Southeast Asia’s interest in BRICS started with Indonesia reportedly putting in its application in late 2023 after considering membership for nearly a decade and having attended BRICS meetings previously as a guest (subsequently, Indonesia has t opted to join the Organization of Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) instead as doing so would, as some argue, help Indonesia achieve its goal of becoming a high-income country by 2045 through the OECD’s rigorous requirements of institutional reforms). This spurred a round of interest from other regional countries such as Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam early this year. Malaysia and Thailand are the latest BRICS applicants.
Prime Minister Anwar said that China’s rise had “brought us a glimmer of hope that there are checks and balances in the world” and hinted at Malaysia’s discomfort with the dominance of the US dollar. According to Malaysia’s Foreign Minister, the country hopes to apply to join during its ASEAN Chairmanship year in 2025, when Brazil takes over as BRICS Chair. Malaysia also wanted to avoid the negative optics of joining this year while Russia is chair of BRICS.
A Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson has explained that BRICS membership would enhance Thailand’s standing as a developing country leader but that it did not mean that Thailand was taking sides. BRICS countries collectively account for 22.8 per cent of Thailand’s total trade, hence membership could open new market access.
ASEAN does not constrain its members from joining other multilateral cooperation platforms, but the unexpected eagerness of ASEAN countries to join BRICS does speak to a weakening faith in ASEAN’s ability to hedge and foster greater intra-regional trade integration and trade links externally.
Beyond market access and trade, BRICS’ ability to offer lending at favourable rates, (presumably) fewer strings attached via its New Development Bank (NDB) is also attractive to members who fear de-dollarisation of the global financial system and would like greater fiscal liquidity. As the largest single creditor country in the world, China together with the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank could offer Bretton Woods alternatives (i.e. International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) and debt reliefs to BRICS+ members such as Ethiopia. US adversaries like Iran under the threat of unilateral sanctions would also find comfort in a grouping like BRICS.
Whether accession to the BRICS would help countries like Malaysia and Thailand to become high-income economies is debatable. Unlike the OECD, which sets out clear criteria for accession and demands domestic reforms to conform to membership standards, the same cannot be said of BRICS whose official website is a hodge-podge of news articles and joint communiques (updated up to 2016). BRICS’ membership criteria, obligations, and responsibilities are nebulous. One stand-out and unspoken fact remains that despite BRICS’ emphasis on acceptance of the principles of the UN Charter as a guiding principle, one of its founding members (Russia) has violated these principles.
This then begs the question of whether ASEAN countries risk tilting towards China which is seen primarily as the dominant force in BRICS. Simplistically, the view is that BRICS is used to hedge against the US and for developing countries to caucus ahead of important meetings as it did back in 2011 when BRICS came to a common position ahead of that G20 meeting. But another view is that for countries like Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar that cannot escape China’s orbit, BRICS affords a cover for them to diversify their relationships with India, Brazil, and other global south countries and thus hedge against China. The perception that China (with Russia as its junior partner) is dominant in BRICS may be misplaced as it would be a disservice to view founding members India, Brazil, and South Africa as sleeping BRICS partners.
ASEAN does not constrain its members from joining other multilateral cooperation platforms, but the unexpected eagerness of ASEAN countries to join BRICS does speak to a weakening faith in ASEAN’s ability to hedge and foster greater intra-regional trade integration and trade links externally. ASEAN’s regional economic integration was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, with countries still feeling the scarring of the economic slowdown.
Tempting as it may be for Western analysts to view ASEAN countries’ membership in BRICS as a direct affront, they would do well to recognise that in the end, being die-hard pragmatists, individual ASEAN countries are simply looking for a way to protect national interests the best they can.
That said, these developments should give added impetus for ASEAN to collectively put their noses to the grind. Member states should drive economic integration more fully, articulate a robust post-2025 vision, secure a successful and high-quality ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA), and pound the pavement to deeper region-to-region linkages with trusted partners like the EU, and newer partners like the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Pacific Islands Forum.
ASEAN countries have joined different multilateral groupings such as the G20, APEC, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), as foreign policy planks to advance their interests. In that sense, BRICS is no different but there will be geostrategic implications on ASEAN if the BRICS agenda forces ASEAN countries to align on issues that may be unhelpful to the grouping’s agenda — for example, by accelerating the displacement of the US dollar’s dominance, encouraging greater trade protectionism and undermining the international legal order. The inherent risk is that Southeast Asian BRICS members may find themselves in potentially uncomfortable positions in conflict with ASEAN’s open, inclusive agenda. One wonders if this fear of missing out on BRICS may lead to diminishing ASEAN regionalism which has served the region well in the last five decades.
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Source link : https://fulcrum.sg/southeast-asia-and-brics-fear-of-missing-out/
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Publish date : 2024-07-09 02:23:36
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