Linn Maung
Although China’s membership in the BRICS and G20 may serve as major pillars of global governance, it is necessary to consider how significant these organisations are from a Chinese perspective and how China views their possibilities for the future. Over the past 20 years, China has increased its international engagement and slowly ingratiated itself into the majority of international organisations and institutions, mostly in order to serve its growing global economic interests.
Since China now has global interests, it is necessary to consider China’s role and repercussions. China will no longer accept the norms of the international community and will instead compel changes by establishing its own institutions and organisations that may advocate for alternative rules. China is forming factions within BRICS and the G20, and both the recent BRICS summit in South Africa and the current G20 Summit in India have made this clear.These changes are expressions of a shift in the balance of power in the world, which has ramifications for South-South cooperation as well as global governance and the industrialised nations of the west.
Chinese decision-makers have given some think tanks the task of conducting more thorough research on the G20 and BRICS, as evidenced by the just finished series of meetings conducted in Kumming in mid-August 2023 of delegates from Chiba-South and South Asians. The G20 is acknowledged in China as “ indispensable” for tackling global challenges, particularly in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. China keeps its distance from the G8 because it is thought that if it joined the “ club of rich countries,” it would lose legitimacy and credibility in the poor world. However, the UN remains China’s principal platform and organisation.
The significance of BRICS is more debatable among Chinese specialists than the G20 is. especially when compared to organisations on the regional level like APEC, ASEAN-plus formats, or SCO.The new “ good neighbour” policy (mulin youhao) developed by China’s new leaders emphasises this idea. Therefore, BRICS is more of a “ nice to have” than a necessity. Officially, the primary goal of BRICS was described as a full-fledged platform for coordination, a mechanism to coordinate the economic, political, and practical collaboration of its members to strengthen ties between the BRICS nations. “ Global common goods” were touted as BRICS’ key motivator. Although there are clearly bilateral disagreements and even wars between BRICS nations, these issues often do not come up at summits because all BRICS nations are interested in developing international cooperation.
A $100 billion reserve pool known as the Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA), which serves as a “ firewall” to protect BRICS against financial threats, are the two major projects that BRICS has been working on. 90% of people agree on the reserve pool, but there still appear to be many development bank specifics that need to be worked out. China wants the “ Yuan” to be internationalised. It’s interesting to note that both the BRICS Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are located in China and have a combined capitalization of $50 billion. Jin Liqun, the chairman of China International Capital Corp., is in charge of the working group for the bank’s establishment, which has its headquarters in Beijing.
Given that both BRICS and AIIB are based in China and complement one another, China would head both organisations, just like Japan leads the Asian Development Bank and the United States leads the World Bank. China lobbied for South Africa’s participation in the BRICS for a reason—South Africa is considered as the entry point for the continent of Africa.
Since BRICS has limited access to global issues compared to the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), China is playing a less assertive role in BRICS. Second, neither the G20 nor the BRICS mentioned a specific focus on Asian partners, despite the fact that China views these groups as more crucial (an “ existential necessity” ) for its policies than APEC (which includes China’s main commercial partners), ASEAN plus formats, and SCO (where China can choose the agenda). Due to economic reasons, China would never overlook South and Southeast Asia.
The involvement of Chinese civil societies and NGOs in the BRICS and G20 is suspect because of the government attitude towards these groups, which is sometimes equivocal and even contradictory. China is ambivalent towards civil society and activism, despite the fact that it requires their help to address some social challenges for which it has the competence.Particularly if they are active in political spheres, civil society organisations are considered as posing a threat to domestic stability.China has previously established its own organisations (GONGOs), which are made up of non-officials but get official assistance for participating in international affairs such as non-proliferation or human rights. Despite the professors’ claims to independence, China’s think tanks are not allowed to their own studies. As a result, they cannot be seen as truly representing civil society.
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