The IBSA task list
Why this unique grouping of India, Brazil and South Africa must be revitalised
Why this unique grouping of India, Brazil and South Africa must be revitalised
The following are remarks given by Ambassador Rajiv Bhatia, Distinguished Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, Gateway House at a panel discussion on ‘Contemporary Global Governance and the Role of IBSA’, at the IBSA Academic Forum hosted by RIS and the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
BRICS has grown in influence in its first decade but is still far from achieving its initial goals
This version of the Gateway House Map on China’s Expanding Global Telecom Empire identifies some more telecommunication assets -- optic-fibre and satellite ground stations -- that Beijing is working on in South and Central America, Africa, Myanmar, the Indian Ocean Region and mainland China besides the existing ones, such as the Pakistan East Africa Cable Express (PEACE). It shows the direction China’s investment is taking, its diplomatic overtures and the larger geopolitical implications of its growing telecom empire
The annual diplomatic exercise next week takes place amid a complex global political scenario. The western alliance is deeply divided, Brexit is near and equations among the great powers are in a constant state of flux. BRICS may now do well to focus more on internal cooperation than global change
Internal political constraints dog it currently, but if overcome, South Africa can be a good chairman to BRICS and IORA in 2018. It also has a tough balancing act to perform between two great Asian powers, China and India
The ninth BRICS summit represented the victory of pragmatism over narrow nationalistic impulses. All BRICS members are likely to craft the grouping’s future script as it enters its second decade, but more crucially, the Big Three will have to show a large dose of statesmanship
BRICS, which has always been committed to enhancing solidarity, is now entering its second decade – even as tensions between its two most consequential members remain unresolved and member states and other emerging markets are set to serve as “the main engine” of global growth
The multi-polar world that BRICS nations seek is not a reality yet and the differences between them do exist. But the BRICS summit in September offers leaders an opportunity to examine a few important financial issues before they can dictate the global agenda
A conference of the BRICS 2017 Think Tank Forum, held in Beijing recently, showed that the grouping had progressed in influencing global governance despite some persistent intra-member differences