BRICS are becoming more relevant as a grouping. The G7 and the G20 are looking weaker. The fact that so many countries have leaders that are looking to their own selves for benefit, and certainly that's true of the United States, has antagonized a lot of allies and friends.
That's why you're not going to see a BRICS currency. And India also is seen as a leader of the global South. China is not. India is seen as more of a larger fellow traveler, more of a trusted friend. The Iran war has made it harder for the United States to continue to project power.
The global order is being rewritten through wars, economic rivalries, and a growing demand from emerging powers for a bigger seat at the table. And few countries are better positioned to navigate that change than India. India's deepening its relationship with the West, reopening dialogue with China, maintaining long-standing ties with Russia, and increasingly positioning itself as a voice for the global South. Now, as India hosts BRICS, all of those relationships and all of those contradictions in the international system come into sharper focus. And to unpack all of that, we're now being joined by Ian Bremmer, founder and president of Eurasia Group and one of the world's leading political risk analysts. Thank you so much for joining me on First Post.
Let's get right into it. BRICS has expanded significantly. Does a larger BRICS make the group more powerful, or does its sheer diversity make consensus harder and therefore limit what it can actually accomplish?
Of course, the BRICS are becoming more relevant as a grouping because they do reflect a larger piece of global GDP and some of the most important technological innovations in the world. And also because the G7 and the G20 are looking weaker. The fact that so many countries have leaders that are looking to their own selves for benefit, and certainly that's true of the United States, has antagonized a lot of allies and friends. And so that gives the BRICS more of an opportunity. But let's be clear that the BRICS are not aligned on much integration. So for example, we've had a lot of talk about digital currencies. We're not going to see a big breakthrough from the BRICS summit. We're not going to see a sudden security alignment that comes out of the BRICS given especially India's concerns about the future of their relationship with China. Even a joint statement on the Iran war is going to be hard to receive given diplomatic awkwardness over Iran's own attendance from, for example, the UAE or from Saudi Arabia, who are essentially involved in the fighting there. So, you know, again, you've got to be, I think, fairly cautious about your expectations from the summit.
All right. So, India-China relations, as you mentioned, also showing signs of a thaw with the two sides returning and they have held talks as well and are working to create more channels going forward. How consequential would you say is a more stable India-China relationship with a wider Asian and global order?
I think it's enormously important that India and China have a more stable relationship. It's not as consequential for the global economy perhaps as US-China, but it's close. And the fact that these countries share a major border and that that border has been contested, that that border has troops on both sides that are staring each other down, and that have come to blows in the past, that's obviously of enormous consequence. And the fact that Modi and Xi Jinping have both worked in the past year to stabilize that relationship so that you can, and the announcement last week that there's a framework to negotiate the resolution of border tensions, that's a very significant first step even if it's a small one. And I think the BRICS summit does offer an opportunity to build on that. But I want to add that India has always been the most hesitant country in the BRICS. And they don't want to give China a huge win from a big successful summit that China believes that they are running, that they are orchestrating. And that's why you're not going to see a BRICS currency. It's why you're not going to see an approval of loans to Russia through the New Development Bank. It's why you're not going to see an alternative to Swift because of the competition between China and India. So stabilizing the relations is very welcome. I think you'll see more of that, but there's only so far that can go.
All right. That being said, India has managed to maintain strong ties with Russia simultaneously deepening its relationship with the United States, Europe. Would you say that that's a model of strategic autonomy that's becoming increasingly difficult in a more polarized world, or is it precisely what countries will need going forward?
I think that India has done a very capable job of showing itself to be not only an important partner of the United States economically, technologically, and in terms of security. And there's been challenges with that relationship under Trump's second term, but it still remains the case. But at the same time, India has managed very strong relations with almost the entire G7 bilaterally, particularly Japan. And India also is seen as a leader of the global south. China is not. China is seen as a major creditor of the global south. And when the global south suddenly can't pay off its debts, China comes in and acts in a more exploitative way, in a more predatory way, much as global south countries increasingly view the United States. India is seen as more of a larger fellow traveler, more of a trusted friend. So geopolitically, India is in, I would say, an easier position to navigate for many of these countries around the world than it is for the United States and for China who are trying to make it an either-or battle between them or the other. And I think the fact that Modi has been a leader in India for a decade plus, and is not seeing any domestic challenges to his rule internally in India, there are problems with that. But internationally, it means that countries know that they're going to work with the same thing, with the same policy. And that's also helped India a lot on the global stage.
Right. And of course, as mentioned earlier, you believe that everyone should temper their expectations when it comes to this. But the New Development Bank is one of BRICS' most tangible institutions, if you can call it that. So, would you say there's any chance that the NDB can become a serious alternative source of development finance for Global South and eventually challenge dominance of institutions like the World Bank? Do you think that's possible?
