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Jokowi between BRICS and a hard place
But will Indonesia accept an invitation? It will gain little in economic terms as BRICS is not a trade bloc.
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President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo inspects officers during the National Police anniversary ceremony at the National Monument in Central Jakarta on Monday. (Kompas.com/Garry Andrew Lotulung)
T
his year, China holds the presidency of BRICS, the cooperation forum of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. China hosts the group’s annual summit Sept. 3-5 in Xiamen. One item on the agenda of the meeting is “BRICS-plus,” an expansion of the group.
In March Chinese representatives mentioned 11 countries as possible new members. They also talked up the prospect of BRICsplus during the June meeting of foreign ministers of BRICS countries, and again when BRICS leaders met on the sidelines of the Hamburg G20 meeting in July.
In August, Chinese news agency Xinhua hinted three times that Indonesia could be invited to join BRICS following the Xiamen summit. It is good to be wanted, but Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo may be pausing for thought.
BRICS needs new initiatives to live up to China’s view of the group’s purpose. But the group still has limited cohesion. Only China and India are achieving good economic growth, while growth in Russia, Brazil and South Africa is at best anemic.
Trade and investment relations between the countries remain minimal, if it wasn’t for their imports from China and their hosting of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI). Mutual economic cooperation in BRICS remains limited.
Russia is lackluster about BRICS, but supports it because it needs China’s cooperation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to retain influence in Central Asia. India is increasingly hostile to China since India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi snubbed China’s President Xi Jinping by not attending Xi’s Belt and Road (B&R) Forum in Beijing in May. Both countries may have pulled back from the flare-up of disagreement over Doklam and Ladakh in the Himalayas, but the issue remains unresolved.
Expansion of BRICS has been discussed since at least 2010. Nothing happened. But BRICS cannot claim to lead the developing world without at least one predominantly Muslim member state. Among the 11 potential new members mentioned in March were Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey.
