Does Russia belong in the BRICS? What about replacing it with Indonesia?
Russia matters, yet Brazil's international relations scholars know preciously little about the 'R' in the BRICS. Prof. Alexander Zhebit, who teaches at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro is one of the few researchers who focuses on the topic. While the Brazilian press has come around to reporting on China regularly (reflecting the fact that China is Brazil's biggest trading partner), Russia is virtually absent from the public debate here.
Despite a highly uncommon visa-waiver agreement between Brazil and Russia (in force since June 2010), the relationship remains rather uninspiring, as I have written in an article in this blog one year ago. Interestingly enough, what ties Brazil and Russia together is their common BRICS membership, an important factor that cannot be underestimated as emerging powers are increasinlgy eager to have a say in global politics. But at the same time, Russia is not really an emerging power, and its interest in changing the international system is limited at best - Brazil, on the other hand, is eager to join the global oligarchy.
Why, then, is Russia still part of the BRICS? Any observer will quickly realize that there seems to exist a global consensus that Russia is a thing of the past, starkly contrasting the other young and dynamic BRICS members. (see Neil
MacFarlane's excellent journal article in International Affairs and op-eds in The Telegraph, the Financial Times and the Moscow Times, all arguing that Russia does not belong in the BRICS). In the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, Nicholas Eberstadt describes Russia's demographic decline (see "The Dying Bear") and reinforces the negative image. The reader feels sorry for the Russian people after being inundated by a wave of depressing social statistics (e.g., Russia's life expectancy is lower than that in Niger and Eritrea). Articles with a more positive connotation are rare, and rather cynical, as Ralph Peter's op-ed in the Washington Post. In the same Foreign Affairs issue, Karen Brooks is full of praise for Indonesia (Is Indonesia Bound for the BRICS?), which seems like a much better fit than rotten Russia. Then why not expel Russia from the BRICS and take in Indonesia instead? This is clearly not a very realistic suggestion. Two years ago, in an op-ed in Today's Zaman (a Turkish newspaper), I suggested the G8 exclude Italy, which earned me nothing but angry comments from Rome. Yet adding Indonesia to the BRICS outfit may still be a good idea, even though Brazil's Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota recently opposed including any new members in the near future.
Last month, Nandan Unnikrishnan, researcher at the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and India's leading Russia expert, told me that the Western narrative of 'declining Russia' did not reflect reality (anachronistic Cold-War triumphalism, perhaps?) He argued that melting ice caps (providing Russia with access to even more resources) and high oil prices augured a bright future for the country - so does Russia belong in the BRICS, after all? Rather than adopting the US-American perspective, emerging powers should find out themselves.
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Someone who believes that Russia is not trying to spread its influence lacks a global view that considers Eastern Europe and middle Asia. Russia is definitely trying to form a Eurasian union. I am glad you spoke of the rising GDP of Russia fueled by higher prices on oil and other natural resources. I believe these will continue to rise. Russia, unlike most of the developing world, still uses native companies to process natural resources and bring them to market. Thomas Freidman has gotten the world to believe that Russia is a technological black hole ready to go the way of the Hapsburg Empire. In actuality Russia will continue to influence control and seek alliance with its neighbors.
The area you may be right lies in the lack of Russia, and by this I mean Putin’s, desire to increase trade and the transfer of ideas between it and other BRIC members.
I agree with your point of view – despite all its problems, Russia will be a force to reckon with over the coming decades. At the same time, Russia does face enourmous obstacles, ranging from its demographic problems to its lack of soft power – very few countries are attracted by Russia’s culture, values, etc. Virtually all other rising powers – China, India, etc. – invest a lot of resources into boosting their soft power, because they believe that legitimacy matters in global politics. Russia, on the other hand, cares little because it relies on its natural resources. The question is if that suffices to maintain global power status.
These kinds of comments could only be delivered by someone who read a few smart books but understands nothing about Russia and Eurasia as a whole! Being Polish, who has very difficult history of relations with Russia, I should stress that there should be clear division between Russian (formerly Soviet communist) regime and Russian people, Russian culture, Russian literature, language etc., which have enormous influence and attraction to European and former Soviet countries. And even more when you listen to arrogant and self-loving ignorants in Brussels, who really scare with their totalitarian mindset. Reading wishful thinking of anti-Russian apologets doesn’t make one a specialist in the country of Chekhov, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Chaikovsky, Repin etc. Really wish more direct personal experience with Russian people and Russia itself before making dogmatic statements and nonsense judgements on lack of attractiveness of Russian culture.
It is precisely because of Russia’s deteriorating demographic and political situation that it needs the BRICS so bad, and why it has been a driving force behind the group along with Brazil, while India prefers other groupings such as IBSA and China prefers to charter its own course, occasionally undermining the BRICS as a grouping. Also, Russia has a much better grasp of how to deal with China and India diplomatically than Brazil does. All of this makes me wonder if there would even be a BRICS without it. Instead of replacing Russia or adding other countries to the outfit, they should instead focus on figuring out what they actually stand for as group, and if they fail to find real common ground they should just disband it. It’s not like we don’t have enough clever-acronym-named groupings.
I agree, Russia does not need to be listed with the BRICS because it does not belong there and never has!
India, China and Brazil are typical “third-world” developing nations.
I turn, Russia has already enjoyed the status of a superpower, which was temporarily (1990-200o) challenged by the rise of the ethnic nationalism and the break-up of the Soviet Union into several ethnic republics. Watch the same thing happen with the US when the country gets swamped by millions of poorly integrated Asian and Latino immigrants within the next 20 years!
Unlike Brazil, which is sort of Europeanized, modern Russia has a 100% educated and relatively homogenous labor force. Also unlike Brazil, it has had a positive net immigration rate because of its relatively low unemployment. In fact, Russia is only second to the US in the number of legal and illegal immigrants. So demographically it is not doing that bad. Also, it’s population has begun growing since Septemeber 2011.
But, just like in Brazil, Russia’s consumerism is not strong enough to sustain a fully developed internal consumption market. But that is changing fast.
So you’re right it does not belong to the BRICS, but not for the stereotyped reasons that you would like to hear.
BRIC is third-world nation club. Russia is not a third world nation in a tre sense of this word and you know it. So yes, it should be replaced by Argentina, or Mexico, or Phillipines or Indonesia or something like Turkey.
I think russia as a bric is completely over underestimated, first of all china is a second world country like russia was during the cold war since they were communist while brazil and india where neutral and so third world countries. Thats the original meaning of the 3 worlds.
second of all the growth is only counted in real not in dollar (nominal) growth by all these economist but on the other hand they only count in dollar values if they talk about the size of the economy this gives russia a stupid position.
They say russia has only 4% growth for example but these growth means the ppp value
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
so you can see by that data russia has even a higher gdp than brazil and the worldbank even gave significant higher numbers for russias gdp in 2010 but they dont say it that if they talk about the size of the economy of russia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_future_GDP_(nominal)
So basically the dollar growth of russia is still quite huge even so far as to be higher than india in 2011 and the coming 5 years as well, according to imf estimate in 2011 february. Its quite stupid what all of the economist are doing when india for example surpassed japan in ppp terms in 2011 no body said anything but when china surpassed japan in 2010 or brazil britain in 2012 it was all in the news. So why they are counting growth only in ppp value???
I also think that russian economy and chinese economy are quite similar even more so than brazil and india. They both have a heavy industry but for different reasons of course but with the same results.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry#List_of_countries_by_industrial_output
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2078rank.html?countryName=Russia&countryCode=rs®ionCode=cas&rank=10#rs
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html?countryName=Russia&countryCode=rs®ionCode=cas&rank=5#rs
Russias industry is higher than brazils and indias and a fourth of china and america. Chinas industry is manufacturing of all kind and russias industry is gathering and processing recourses of all kind. But both have kind of the same results. Russia exports more than india and brazil and they have a similar high account plus like china while brazil and india import more resulting into a minus along many western countries. Its also funny to see germany exporting more than the usa and resulting in a high account balance like chinas. Its obviously not only the west vs the brics in how a economy is built up.