Since Brazil co-founded the BRICS in 2009, Brazilian analysts and politicians have largely agreed that membership brought tangible benefits to the country—including closer ties to China. But as this year’s summit approaches, the costs are adding up. The meeting in Kazan, Russia, will occur as the invasion of Ukraine, more than halfway through its third year, continues to cloud Vladimir Putin’s reputation.
BRICS membership (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) helped solidify Brazil’s status as an emerging power, a narrative that has held up remarkably well despite economic stagnation during the last decade. It also guaranteed Brazilian leaders regular facetime with China’s political leadership and bureaucracy, which became the country’s top trading partner in 2009.
The countless intra-BRICS meetings on areas ranging from defense and health to education and the environment helped Brazil’s bureaucracy, largely ignorant about China until recently, adapt to a less Western-centric world. Perhaps most importantly, however—and often overlooked by Western analysts—is that Brazil found common cause with other BRICS members in seeking to actively shape the transition towards multipolarity, which they regard not only as inevitable but also desirable and a development that will help constrain Washington.
Meanwhile, the costs of BRICS membership were largely seen as negligible, so neither center-right president Michel Temer (2016-18) nor far-right president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-22) questioned Brazil’s membership. On the contrary, by the end of his government, Bolsonaro was a pariah in most of the West, but thanks to the BRICS grouping, he avoided complete diplomatic isolation. After all, it was only during encounters with fellow BRICS leaders that the former right-wing president could be sure not to face uncomfortable questions about his handling of the pandemic, deforestation or his unfounded allegations about electoral fraud.
Brazil hits a BRICS wall
Recent developments in the BRICS grouping, however, have the potential to undermine this relatively broad consensus in Brazil vis-à-vis the benefits of membership. Until last year, Brazil had, along with India, successfully prevented the bloc’s expansion, promoted by Beijing since 2017. Both Brasília and Delhi….
