At the 2016 summit the BRICS nations economies have been experiencing a down turn, so naturally their main focus at the summit was to boost trade and between their nations which make up almost half of the world population.
Brazil is one of the most important countries in South America, so their economic recovery is crucial to the entire economic status of South America. The other countries rely on Brazil for their oil soy and other such commodities which have dropped. They are also looking to boost their IT, pharmaceutical, energy, sanitation and important farming industries.
In the recent years tensions between the U.S. and Russia has caused the Russian economy to decline, especially with the U.S. sanctions on oil. Russia has made very close relations with China due to this and will only advocate on issues for them. Russia has also been looking to expand nuclear ties in India and also discuss the situation in Syria and Afghanistan with India.
India wants to work on climate change, infrastructure and sustainable development. India's economy is the fastest growing of the BRICS nations but it also has one of the highest poverty levels of the five. The government is also working on counter terrorism methods, cyber security and energy security. India also wants to have a BRICS social services agreement, financial services framework and potentially a think tank for those five countries.
On the flip side China is the slowest growing economy of the five nations even though it's the second largest, behind only the US. China is looking to expand into foreign markets, and strongly argued for a BRICS free trade agreement, it's not a formal proposal yet but they are fond of the idea. They are also likely to ask for support in a trade route through Central Asia and Russia to Europe and the Indian Ocean.
South Africa is not in a good financial position and has become worse since their finance minister is facing fraud charges with a still unstable currency. The charges will damage their economic well being and hurt their government as well. While it is the smallest of the five economies it still has vast mineral wealth which makes them a good ally for other countries. They have not stated what they want to get out of the conference.
Taboola, C. (2016, October 15). Here are the key challenges confronting BRICS countries. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/15/brics-summit-in-goa-brazil-russia-india-china-and-south-africa-all-face-own-challenges.html
This was a lot of good information on what is happening with these large economies. It shows how when countries don't get along such as the U.S and Russia in certain industries, it can change the whole worlds position and relationships. Such as Russia now having closer ties with China and expanding nuclear ties in India. All this was influenced by their declining relationship with the U.S. oil trade.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that India is one of the fastest growing nations within BRICS, but they have one of the strongest divides with poverty. It is interesting to hear how other countries are facing issues like economic infrastructure and climate change because I hope it spurs other countries to reflect on their own implementation of these issues. One issue I often forget about is cyber security, but it has become a huge problem among major nations in the past few years. It is unfortuate that this is another frontier of vulnerability different countries are taking advantage of for malicious purposes.
ReplyDeleteI never understood how we so easily became allies with Japan after World War II but not with Russia. It's disappointing to see so much fear mongering in the media about Russia. Every President has tried to improve ties with Russia but all of them have made little progress. It makes sense that Russia would be more close with China as they're geographically closer but also because they have a large economy like the US.
ReplyDeleteBrianna mentioned cyber security. This is becoming a large problem especially due to the ransomware outbreaks and the massive botnets out there. We are also seeing many governments start to stockpile cyber weapons in order to use them against other governments. A simple flash drive was left in an Iranian nuclear power plant that caused issues and set their nuclear program back. Funny thing about the Chinese government, if you have a branch over in China you have to give the government access to your firewalls to access your company network in China. That can be a be discourage to FDI.
There is an entire political science course behind this blog post just by itself! When it comes to Russia's relationship with the United States, the history is long and 'colorful' to say the least. While many of us would like to put the cold war behind us (Russian citizens included), remnants of old KGB ways (Putin's included), make the transition to civility and trust difficult. Note that I have advocated reading news outlets such as RT, but as of today, Twitter has determined not to accept their advertising money. And yet, how many Americans download Kaspersky into their computers to protect themselves from hackers??
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