The Political Economy of the BRICS Countries. Группа авторов. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

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16 areas of cooperation.7 Many of these areas have, till date, remained more of intention rather than of actualization.

      “Strategic tensions between the Asian BRICS are a key factor in their relations. As Chinese economic and strategic influence increases in Asia and further afield, especially Africa and South America, these strains might increase. … Tensions also exist in China’s relations with India, partly due to growing competition between them for economic influence in states such as Nepal, Burma/Myanmar, and Cambodia. … Some Indian security analysts perceive a growing Chinese encirclement of India through its maritime influence in the region. … These tensions persist despite their involvement in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, of which China and Russia are full members and India has observer status. Another key contemporary issue on which the BRICS have different priorities is climate Russia. … Russia has diverged from the other BRICS on key aspects of ‘post-Kyoto Protocol’ environmental negotiations in calling for binding targets for everyone, something the Chinese and Indian governments in particular reject” (Luckhurst, 2013: 257).8

      Hence for the sake of tractability and focus, this section will discuss a specific issue where there has been some apparent progress, viz., the NDB.

      There are at least two distinct ways in which one can see the genesis and rationale of the NDB. The first is clearly the dissatisfaction of the emerging economies with the governance of the Bretton Woods institutions, like the International Monetary Fund and the Word Bank, which are quota based as the quotas tended to represent an archaic global economic power structure.9 All the BRICS countries on different occasions have expressed dissatisfaction over the state of governance and democratic deficit in the IMF or World Bank. Second, and more importantly, almost all the BRICS countries have accumulated some foreign exchange reserves which are normally investment in safe assets, primarily in the form of securities of governments issuing four major currencies, US dollar, Euro, Pound Sterling, and Japanese Yen (of course, led by US dollar). Admittedly, there are differences in foreign exchange holding across BRICS countries. Illustratively, in 2017, China’s forex reserves stood at nearly US $3 trillion, as compared with little more than US $360 billion for both Brazil and Russia, little over US $400 billion for India, and around US $42 billion in South Africa. More interestingly, all these countries have experienced a steep and steady rise in their forex reserves from the late 1990s to early 2010s (Figure 5). The presence of such substantial forex reserves made the establishment of the NDB comparatively easier for the BRICS countries.

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      Figure 5:Foreign exchange reserves of BRICS countries (USD billion).

      Source: World Bank.

      Has the NDB been effective in its operations? One may note its sharp contrast to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). With its headquarter in Beijing, the AIIB commenced operations in January 2016 and has now grown to more than 50 approved members from around the world. Has the NDB got the attention it deserved? It has been aptly noted:

      “The launch of the NDB has been over-shadowed by the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). While the AIIB is consistent with a model of structural-driven change in global politics, the NDB necessitates a more nuanced analysis around collective agency. With 26.06 per cent of voting rights and a 30.34 per cent … stake of the US$100 billion capital base …, China possesses a de facto veto in the AIIB. In sharp contrast the initial subscribed capital of US$50 billion in the NDB is equally shared among its five members … While the NDB has so far restrained from expanding beyond the BRICS, the AIIB opened up to 57 founding members thereby driving a wedge between those countries willing to follow Beijing’s lead and those (notably the United States and Japan) resistant in doing so. Although the extent of the global reach of the NDB is still very much in doubt, the AIIB is tied more explicitly to the ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) … designed to advance infrastructural development both on the westward land route from China through Central Asia and on the southerly maritime routes from China through Southeast Asia and to South Asia, Africa, and Europe” (Cooper, 2017: 275).

      Concluding Observations

      Having described the genesis and establishment of the BRICS block, this chapter has tried to gauge different elements of heterogeneity. Such heterogeneity exists in terms of different matrices, such as size of the economy, operation and state of monetary and fiscal policies, exchange rate flexibility, and quantum of foreign exchange reserves. The presence of such heterogeneity is accentuated by the presence of China whose size tends to overshadow all other economies in the block. Perhaps the effective emergence of the BRICS block purely in terms of economic multilateralism without any binding force of history, politics, or shared identity is difficult.11 On the contrary, the presence of complex political issues among the three major partners of the block (viz., China, Russia, and India) could have made the BRICS block suffer from blue baby syndrome, thus bringing into question its healthy existence (if not the longevity).

      References

      Baracuhy, B. (2012). “The Geopolitics of Multilaterism: The WTO Doha Round Deadlock, the BRICs, and the Challenges of Institutionalised Power Transitions”, CRP Working Paper, University of Cambridge.

      Bernanke, B. S. (2006). “The Chinese Economy: Progress and Challenges”, Speech at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China, December 15, 200, available at https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20061215a.htm (accessed during January–March 2017).

      Cooper, A. F. (2017). “The BRICS’ New Development Bank: Shifting from Material Leverage to Innovative Capacity”, Global Policy, 8(3): 275–284.

      Exim Bank (2016). “Intra-BRICS