On the evening of May 19, hosted by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the Foreign Ministers of the BRICS nations—Naledi Pandor of South Africa, Carlos Franca of Brazil, Sergey Lavrov of Russia, and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar of India—met virtually to address the pressing needs of their nations as representative of the developing nations of the Global South. As currently constituted, the BRICS represent 40% of the world’s population and 20% of global GDP.
But a separate session of the “BRICS-Plus” grouping, including representatives from Central Asia, Southwest Asia, Africa, Asia and Ibero-America, signals that the BRICS’ leaders envision an expanded and even more representative grouping. Foreign ministers of Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Thailand participated in this group, and thanked China for initiating the “BRICS Plus” dialogue, noting that it will help foster cooperation and coordination among emerging markets and developing nations in a very challenging international situation.
In his address to the BRICS members, Chinese President Xi Jinping identified priority themes for what he said was a time of great “turbulence and transformation,” requiring a strengthening of cooperation and solidarity and a focus on international peace and development. He particularly emphasized the need to seek “common security” in the world through his Global Security Initiative. “Seeking one’s own security at the expense of others will only create new tensions and risks,” he warned, so it is crucial for the BRICS to strengthen political and mutual trust and security cooperation, and to communicate and coordinate on major regional and international issues. Bloc confrontation, Cold War mentality and power politics should be rejected in favor of building a global community of “security for all,” he underscored.
