The Power of the BRICS Process: Views from Russia

Citizens Electoral Council of Australia conference
“The World Land-Bridge: Peace on Earth, Good Will towards All Men”,
28-29 March 2015, Melbourne, Australia.

From Panel 1 The World Land-Bridge: It’s Being Built!
The Power of the BRICS Process: Views from Russia
Professor Georgy Toloraya, Executive Director of the Russian National
Committee for BRICS Research

CEC National Secretary Craig Isherwood: We are extremely pleased to welcome
as our first speaker on the Russian perspective on the BRICS, Professor Georgy
Toloraya, who is Executive Director of the Russian National Committee for BRICS
Research. Dr. Toloraya has served in the past as a diplomat in both countries of the
Korean peninsula, as well as here in Australia as Consul-General in Sydney, from
2003 to 2007. His scholarly expertise on East Asia has included a concentration on
Korean affairs, especially the economic policies of South Korea. He has worked at the
Russian Academy of Sciences Institute for the World Economy and International
Relations, as well as heading the East Asia Department at the Academy’s Institute of
Economics. Prof. Toloraya also teaches at MGIMO, the Moscow State Institute of
International Relations, which is the university of Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
These days, as Russia this year chairs both the BRICS group and the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, Dr. Toloraya is especially busy with the new post he took
up in 2011, when the Russian National Committee for BRICS Research was
inaugurated and he became its Executive Director. The new organisation was formed
by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russky Mir, or “Russian World”,
Foundation, with backing from the Russian Foreign Ministry, pursuant to a Russian
Presidential order after the 2011 BRICS summit in China. The Presidium of the
Scientific Council of the Russian National Committee for BRICS Research is chaired
by Academician Mikhail Titarenko; some of you may have read his message to last
October’s Schiller Institute 30th anniversary conference in Germany, expressing
appreciation for our movement’s decades of work for the Eurasian Land-Bridge and a
new, just economic order in the world.
I invite Professor Toloraya now to speak to us on the BRICS process.
Professor Georgy Toloraya: Thank you very much, Craig, for your kind
introduction. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming on this
Saturday morning to this conference, which I think is very important, maybe a
milestone.

It’s a sign of the changing times. When I left Australia about seven years ago,
I would never have imagined that I would come here to present on BRICS. As a
matter of fact, BRICS didn’t exist at that time. There was “BRIC”, which was a loose
grouping of countries, and nobody thought about it as an international phenomenon at
that time.

And still, there are many sceptics, especially in the West. I recently had a
meeting with a high-ranking ambassador. We were sitting in a country, which I won’t
name, by the seacoast, and we were talking about BRICS. He said, “Look, what is
BRICS? It’s just a photo opportunity for President Putin not to feel that he is alone,
when he is in Brisbane or somewhere.”
So, unfortunately there is a lot of scepticism, especially in the West. From the
start, the U.S. media, and scholars, would say that BRICS is either impossible, or
reactionary. I recently published an article in the Russian branch of Foreign Affairs,
which is called Russia in Global Affairs. [I quoted] one scholar [who wrote], “No idea
has done more to muddle thinking about the global economy than that of the BRICS.”
Usually the BRICS is criticised, based on the fact that the countries are so different,
that they have many contradictions among them, that their economies are faltering
now, for example in Russia, also in Brazil, and China is also not free of economic
problems, and that the countries which are in BRICS not only have contradictions
between them, like India and China, but also between suppliers of raw materials, like
Russia and Brazil, for example, and consumers of raw materials, like China and, to a
certain extent, India. So, obviously, they cannot be on the same page for commodity
prices and things like that.
Also, the critics sometimes still interpret BRICS as just an economic
phenomenon. Therefore, they state that since there’s no economic integration between
the BRICS countries, it’s sort of an artificial grouping.
This is a misunderstanding of the essence of BRICS. I would dare say that
BRICS is a fully political project, a project of the political elites of the BRICS
countries—newly emerging powers—with a clear purpose: to defend their joint
interests in this changing world, by promoting reforms and promoting change in the
global economic architecture, as well as, eventually, in the world order.
That said, I would like, however, to contemplate how the BRICS strategy can
be coordinated with the current Western strategy. Especially in the West, and the
U.S., there is a firm notion that BRICS is anti-Western, especially anti-U.S. And, in
fact, the U.S. is doing a lot to put pressure on the BRICS and try to disorganise it, in
many aspects. For example, there was a lot of pressure on BRICS with respect to IMF
reform, and also on BRICS in connection with the Ukraine issue. For example, before
the summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, the U.S. and Ukrainian ambassadors made a joint
demarche to the foreign ministries of all the countries, to try to persuade them not to
work out a common position on Ukraine.
There are lots of examples like this, but I think this is a wrong attitude. Why?
Because BRICS is really a union of reformers, and it is an inter-civilisational union, I
would say. But, at the same time, everybody understands that we cannot move on, and
cannot get progress, without cooperation with the dominant civilisation, with the
West.

And, in fact, all the BRICS countries are more oriented towards the West, both
in terms of values, and in terms of standards of living, and technology and foreign
trade. The BRICS countries have much less [by way of] ties with each other, so far,
than each of them has with the West—with the U.S. and European market, for
example.
So, what BRICS implies is cooperation. It’s not a zero-plus game. BRICS is
supposed to cooperate with developed countries, in order to progress. But, at the same
time, it should strive to solicit western cooperation on changing the world order in a
way that it can be just, for everybody—for all the members of the world community,
not just a few rich countries, which now dominate the IMF, for example, and all the
economic governance organisations, and other global governance institutions.
Also, BRICS started as a union, or as a grouping, mostly based on economic
issues. Now, it’s quite a different phenomenon. We now have, I think, 25 tracks of
cooperation within BRICS. We have lots of discussions on many issues. More and
more, when we try to solve these individual issues, like ones in finance or trade, or
cyber-security, for that matter, it turns out that before addressing these issues of global
governance, peace and security, the rules of the game involved should be changed.
What are the modern challenges the world faces? I think we can say that one is
a sort of fragmentation of international security. We have no universal rules, no
international law being applied in a single, unified manner. We have, rather,
“coalitions of the willing”, who try to solve this or that international conflict or
problem, usually on a very biased basis, and others, which are not members of those
coalitions, and whose rights are not protected by international law.
We also have a fragmentation of economic life. The world, more and more, is
being divided into different economic groupings, which do not follow universal rules.
We have the WTO, we have financial rules, but they are applied, also, in a very
specific manner: with double standards, I would say. There are more and more free
trade areas, or some kinds of economic unions, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
which exclude themselves from the universal rules and in fact are aimed at
diminishing some other countries, which they consider to be competitors. The Trans-
Pacific Partnership is clearly directed against China, for example.
I have mentioned double standards already. They are very different. This is,
obviously, seen on many occasions. I would only cite Ukraine. In the Kosovo
example, when the country declared independence, it was accepted; while in the same
situation in Crimea, it was not. There are lots of lies and double standards about
what’s going on in Ukraine now, but I won’t address it; this is just an example.
Also, we are watching now a very dangerous process of the West’s trying to
break the strategic balance in the world that was created during the Cold War era, and
which kept the world from a major world war since the end of the Second World War.
The missile defence programs, the Prompt Global Strike strategy, the new kinds of
weapons like drones, are dangerous. They can break the strategic balance and result in
a war that might well annihilate all of humanity. Craig and Helga were right about
noting this very dangerous tendency.

To put it in a nutshell, we see a sort of geopolitical division—not like in the
Cold War era, but an even more dangerous one, when the much more complicated
world is now divided on different issues and in different spheres or spaces, and there’s
no mechanism which actually regulates it. The United Nations Organization cannot
fulfil the goal it was created for. Sometimes it’s just dysfunctional.
So, what should be done?

First of all, the BRICS countries think that what is necessary to be done, is to
uphold international law—law as universal rules. It’s important to note that there is a
certain difference. Of course I’m no lawyer (I’m an economist by training and a
diplomat in my career), but still I can say that international law is not based on any
national law, but rather has certain special features. The BRICS countries, including
even India, with its tradition of British common law, presume that law should be
based on codified norms, which should be applied, while English or British common
law, and American law, are based on precedent, as you all know well. Once a
precedent is created, this is a justification for what goes on and on. If the U.S. invades
Iraq, this sets a precedent for other countries to follow suit. I think that this is not what
is supposed to be the basis for international law, and the protection of law. Stating the
rules and observing them is one of the most important purposes of the BRICS
countries.

Second, as I mentioned, the central role of the UN should be upheld. There are
lots of precedents, where UN decisions are not applied, or are applied in a selective
manner. For example, how many resolutions were adopted criticising Israel for what it
is doing in Palestine? None of them are taken into consideration, while certain
declarations that are useful for the West are being pushed through. There is a need to
reform the UN and, in general, strengthen the international institutions included in the
UN system, which are universal and that are transparent, based on certain rules, which
cannot be bent towards one or another side.
I believe this is the role of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC),
which should be reformed. Of course, BRICS is divided on this issue. All the
countries of BRICS have set UNSC reform as their purpose, but there are different
approaches. India and Brazil, as well as South Africa, are eager to get permanent
membership on the UNSC, while China, supported by Russia—we are not really
eager to give up the exclusive status of veto-wielding members that we have now. But
I personally think that it should be changed. Of course, it may be not so patriotic, but I
think that having the other countries, the BRICS countries on board, for taking
responsibility for world affairs, is more important than protecting the existing order.
We also need to increase the BRICS countries’ role in addressing all kinds of
threats. I will speak about this in more detail later. It is also important that BRICS
play an increasing role in preventing and managing conflicts, including regional
conflicts. This is already on the agenda. Inevitably, during BRICS summits this
conflict discussion pops up, and the discussions are no longer limited to only
economic issues. If you read the Fortaleza Declaration, for example, or the Durban
Declaration, much of them is devoted to conflicts, to regional conflicts and other
conflicts. Of course, BRICS has neither the desire, so far, nor the mechanism to
regulate these conflicts, but this is something that I think should come in the future.
So, the basic principles on which BRICS is based, as I mentioned, and I’ll say
it again, should be, first, commitment to international law and the UN’s central role.
Second—neutrality in the case of conflicts, especially those with the participation of a
BRICS country. This is important, as in China’s case, where China has some
problems with Japan, and with the South China Sea countries. I believe that the
BRICS now, at this point of development, shouldn’t interfere, otherwise it can break
up their unity. This is a tactical move, but I think it is important at this moment.
Third, BRICS must develop a uniform policy with respect to regional
conflicts, through consultations, and I will elaborate on this later, and, fourth, it
should steer the BRICS by non-violence and objectivity.
One more thing, is the guiding principles that make up the foundation of
BRICS. I’ll read what they are. These are mutual respect and non-interference in the
internal affairs of each other, a non-confrontational approach, mutual respect for the
choice of each of the countries, openness, pragmatism, solidarity, a non-bloc
character, and non-direction against third parties. This is very important. We stress
again and again, that BRICS is not aimed against any third party, including the United
States.

BRICS should now think about creating a permanent consultation mechanism
of foreign policy and security officials, and I think we’ll have some progress on that at
the Ufa meeting, during the Russian chairmanship.
* Coordinate the position on conflicts in international organisations, like the
UN and G20, and others.
* Formulate common policies on national identity and human rights
protection, which is very important for conflict-prevention in the future.
* Cooperate on a network basis through regional organisations and outreach
countries.
BRICS might suggest global treaties in new areas of security, for example the
non-weaponisation of outer space, new types of weapons, as mentioned before, and
others.
BRICS could also produce a joint declaration, or even treaty, on peaceful
coexistence within the BRICS countries, which would be a milestone. You know, for
example, the ASEAN case: ASEAN is based on the Bali Treaty, which cites the basic
principles of inter-state relations and the peaceful character of this organisation. And I
think that, while ASEAN is a regional organisation, BRICS can do much more by
suggesting this kind of a global treaty, as a sort of declaration of what might be the
new era in international relations.

There are even some suggestions that BRICS might eventually have a joint
peacekeeping force, under the auspices of the UN. But I think we are still far from
that, because there is a strong allergy within BRICS, when some suppose it might
some day become a sort of military union. It will not, because the BRICS countries
don’t need this, and it would never be a NATO-type military-political union, simply
because the principles and the foundation of BRICS are quite different.
If we speak about further challenges we might fight together, these would
include: new types of weapons; weaponisation of outer space; terrorism; drug
trafficking and international organised crime. Information and cyber-security are
especially important. It’s no secret that the Internet now is governed by small groups
of companies and individuals, based in the United States. Unfortunately, they do use
the Internet for their own advantage, starting with cyber-spying and gathering
essential information, to threatening to block the Internet access of countries or
persons who are not acceptable, I would say. BRICS, I think, would have a desire to
become leaders in the global Internet, because BRICS, after all, represents more than
half the world population, and a large number of Internet users, a number that will
grow day by day. I think that this is one of the major topics of BRICS cooperation, to
create this kind of international new rules for the Internet and a coordination
mechanism.

Also, the BRICS are all countries with vast ocean-related interests, and
maritime security is one of the areas where they could cooperate. Illegal migration is
also relevant to BRICS countries, [as are] food, energy and water security. Water
security is increasingly a challenge to the development of the future world. Ecology
and greening our economy is especially important for BRICS. All countries face this
issue, especially China. I think that BRICS can do a lot to bring these issues to the
forefront, as well as to help create and impose new rules for the Internet. Disaster
relief is also one of the areas in which we would like to cooperate.
So, these are the areas in the non-economic sphere that are important for
BRICS.

I would also name a few areas of cooperation which are now crucial for
BRICS, in the non-political sphere. First and foremost, is changing the international
economic and financial architecture. We all know that the IMF, based on the Bretton
Woods post-war system, although it was supposed to be an international body, is
much under the influence of the U.S. and European countries. The decisions made
there are based not on consensus, but on the voting rights and the possibility for the
U.S., and sometimes Europe, to wield the decisions they think are important for them,
not for the recipient of the aid and not for the global economy as a whole. Our efforts,
the BRICS countries’ efforts to change the situation have, so far, more or less failed.
The demands for reform of the IMF and World Bank have been consistent, and
decisions were taken and a directive adopted to change, for example, the quota
system—the quotas, and the voting quotas of the BRICS countries and newly
emerging economies, but they have, so far, been blocked, and blocked by none other
than the U.S. Congress.

There was a sort of declaration from the BRICS countries, that unless there is
substantial reform before the beginning of 2015, we’ll have to do something.
Although it’s not published, it’s not something that is stated, I have a strong feeling
that the Asia Infrastructure Development Bank [Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank—AIIB], which was mentioned earlier, is one of the answers to the virtual
domination of the U.S. in the IMF and the Asian Development Bank.
This is now taken as a challenge by many countries, but some of the closest
U.S. allies decided to join it, quite unexpectedly for China, I should say. So, we shall
see how it will work. Anyway, the AIIB as I understand, is concentrated, or focussed,
on projects in Asia, and not even the Asia-Pacific Region as a whole, but rather
Southeast Asia and Central Asia. So, it's a regional bank, so far.
Much more important is the New Development Bank, which was first
proposed by India several years ago, given the Delhi summit, and now this idea has
taken shape, and the agreement on the bank is supposed to become operational after
the Ufa summit in Russia. I can answer some questions about this later, but would just
only say that the BRICS New Development Bank is a very important instrument not
only of support for the infrastructural and other projects that are important for the
BRICS countries, and which are not expected to be supported by the IMF or other
international financial organisations, but it is also a sort of first example of
institutionalisation of the BRICS countries, gathered together, to work out joint
economic, and not only economic, projects. One of the things I came to realise, [is
that] when it comes to analysing statistics on BRICS countries, or economic
tendencies, or political life, we are all basing our analysis on western or international
publications. We don’t know, because we don’t have much access to Brazilian or
South African statistics; Chinese, also we have only those which are Englishlanguage-
based. So, what is going on in the BRICS countries, [what] we, as the
scholars, the experts, and decision-makers [have], is much based on how it is
interpreted by the West, by the western media. The BRICS New Development Bank is
a place, I think, where the countries could directly exchange information, and their
plans and their strategies. So, it may be more than just an investment bank. It might be
a sort of analytical centre (or maybe one should be separate within the bank), for the
future coordination of economic policies.

If you ask me about the institutionalisation of BRICS, I think this is a process
that has already started. The BRICS countries are very reluctant to force this process,
simply not to be condemned as creating some sort of a bloc. Especially China is very
cautious not to push this process, because it could be interpreted as sort of a Chinesedominated
organisation, which would be the end of BRICS. I think this is one of the
purposes of the policies of the U.S. and other western countries, to break the BRICS
from inside it.

But, still, institutionalisation is needed. This year, we are going to create a socalled
virtual secretariat, as a result of Russia’s chairmanship. This is an Internetbased
platform, which makes it possible for countries to exchange documents, to keep
records, and to cooperate, for official channels, electronically, without actually
meeting each other. It’s a first step, and I think that it’s an important first step for the
future creation of some kind of future BRICS institutions, which could be at first of a
purely technical character.

For example, as a diplomat I know that when leaders meet each other, and you
have negotiations with other countries, there’s a person—I played this role many
times—who sits and takes notes on what is being said. Imagine, every country has
such a note-taker, and they all make notes. And there’s translation. Everybody takes
notes, and the text which is the result is kept secret, of course, because it’s a national
document. But these five texts, in the case of BRICS, are not necessarily the same,
because you tend to misunderstand something, you can put emphasis on one or
another thing, so what the leaders or others have agreed upon, in the future becomes a
source of contradictions. One says, “You know, this and that were said and agreed.”
The other says, “No, no, no, this is what it was.” So, I think we should keep a joint
record of what’s going on. This is one example of a role that a technical secretariat
would play. It is just one example, of course, but it gives you an idea of the
complexity of international relations.

One issue that would inevitably come up is the enlargement of BRICS, with
other countries joining, including Australia, for that matter. I think that, so far, we
have to be very cautious in this respect. First, as I’ve said, there is an unwritten
criterion for BRICS membership. These are big countries, with big populations, and
[ones that are] naturally central to their regions. Some of them happen to be
civilisational platforms of certain regions, like China, or Russia, or India, even Brazil,
for that matter; South Africa, to some extent, because it represents the whole of the
continent, or tries to bring in this added value of representing the African mentality
and African culture.

So, not all countries can be members of BRICS, just by virtue of wanting to.
There should be some criteria. If you ask me, I would say that what we lack in BRICS
now is, of course, two civilisations. That is, broadly speaking, European civilisation,
and the Muslim one. I would suggest Indonesia as the first candidate. That’s my own
opinion, because it’s a big, developing country with some 375 million people, and it
fits the criteria of BRICS.

There are many other countries which would love to join. I won’t name them,
but there is sort of a line, already, of aspirants into BRICS. But I would caution
against that, because BRICS just started. We are different, we have many problems.
First, before enlarging BRICS, we should put our house in order. It’s much easier to
do this with five partners, than with six, seven, eight, nine, or whatever. I would also
quote Parkinson’s Law, that any committee that contains more than seven members
has a tendency of being divided into factions and becoming dysfunctional. Inevitably,
when you have some kind of a committee which is enlarged and enlarged and
enlarged, later, inside the committee there appears a sort of group, or presidium, as we
call it in Russia—a central deciding board, which consists of just three or five
members. This is a joke, of course, but it has some sense to it. BRICS shouldn’t be
big.

But, it is very important for BRICS to cooperate with so-called outreach
countries and organisations. This is a mechanism that should be created. We don’t
have it, so far. It has only started to be created, starting approximately three years ago.
In Africa, there was a meeting between the BRICS leaders and outreach countries; in
that case, it was African leaders. In Brazil, it was with leaders of Latin American
countries. In Russia, we’ll have simultaneously the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization meeting, which will bring in some regional leaders, and they are the
natural partners for BRICS outreach in Russia. My opinion, however, is that we
should also take Europe as outreach, because we are located in Europe, and therefore
we would wish so. If relations between Russia and the European Union were feeling
better, I think that that could have happened, but I don’t think it’s possible at the
moment.

So, we have this mechanism of outreach countries and outreach organisations.
I think that in Russia’s case, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization could be a sort of
partner for BRICS.

I think it is necessary to take this process further. A formal institution, a
formal status for countries that want to cooperate with BRICS should be created,
maybe with two categories: observers, and partners for dialogue. So the leaders of
these countries can be part of the process. For example, observers would be accepted
at the meetings and the deliberations, maybe at first without any right to vote, and to
make decisions, but anyway learning what’s going on and presenting their point of
view. And the other partners may also take part in certain big gatherings, and have
some bilateral dialogue. I think that this is the first step, actually, for the enlargement
of BRICS, and taking in new countries.

And just to end about my beloved Australia, where I spent so many beautiful
years: in case Australia is interested, although it is widely accepted in the world as a
part of an Anglo-American axis, it would be very nice if Australia could, being a big
continent, not with much population, but, you know, things come and go, things can
change—I think it would be only natural for Australia to become a dialogue partner,
at first, and an observer of BRICS.

Thank you very much.