Amb. M.K. Bhadrakumar, a former Indian Ambassador to Russia and other countries, provided profound insights on the BRICS Summit in India in an interview by Glenn Diesen today. Bhadrakumar characterized the event by quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that “BRICS has come of age.” This was also demonstrated, he added, by the fact that President Xi Jinping called on BRICS to become more involved in “peacekeeping.”

The other highlights:

• The role of the BRICS as a medium for diplomatic connections was shown in the close connection between Xi Jinping and Modi, despite being in an “era of turbulent crisis” in which the West was trying to foment divisions between these two Asian powers. The Trump administration has systematically dismantled the institutions of international security, but the BRICS has meanwhile surpassed the G7 in many economic areas, while focusing not on economic or military control, but on development.

• The emergence of a new payment system, to the use of local currencies. He emphasized that this is not an attack on the U.S. nor on the dollar, but due to the need for alternative payment systems.

• Iran, despite the U.S. effort to isolate it, was very well received, and signed agreements with the Eurasian Economic Union as well as with India.

• The BRICS Joint Declaration did not name the United States, although it denounced several things that clearly were the result of the policies of the Trump Administration, such as sanctions and the operations against Ibero-America. Bhandrakumar emphasized that BRICS is not anti-U.S., but rather is trying to build a “new architecture,” for which the summit is a “landmark event.”