For BRICS, Plan of Action Proves Elusive (original) (raw)
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For Group of 5 Nations, Acronym Is Easy, but Common Ground Is Hard
From left, President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, President Hu Jintao of China and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa in New Delhi on Thursday.Credit...Saurabh Das/Associated Press
- March 28, 2012
NEW DELHI — As the shock waves of the global recession convulsed Europe and the United States three years ago, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China gathered for a meeting that seemed to signal a new era. They had global buzz as rising economic powers, a catchy acronym, BRIC, and an ambitious agenda to remake an international monetary system long dominated by the West.
The new BRIC era has yet to arrive.
When the group’s leaders meet in New Delhi on Thursday, their biggest achievement will have been adding an S: they took on South Africa last year. The five BRICS nations still rank among the fastest-growing economies in the world, and, even if growth has slowed, individually, their global influence continues to rise. But they have struggled to find the common ground necessary to act as a unified geopolitical alliance.
“The real issue for them is to come up with agreed objectives, and also agree on common actions,” said Brahma Chellaney, a foreign affairs analyst with the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. “That is a tough nut.”
The BRICS are still a new group, and some analysts argue that with time they could become a more cohesive alliance. But for now, they are troubled by internal rivalries and contradictions that have stymied the group’s ability to take any significant action toward a primary goal: reforming Western-dominated international financial institutions.
Since its inception, the group has discussed creating a development bank to rival the World Bank, and on Wednesday a Chinese official expressed hope that a breakthrough might come this week. Yet to date the proposal has been stalled, partly over worries that China would dominate the new institution.
Last year, the five countries could not agree on a new leader for the International Monetary Fund. Nor have they endorsed a candidate to replace Robert B. Zoellick as head of the World Bank. (President Obama recently proposed Jim Yong Kim, president of Dartmouth College.)
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