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BRICS welcomes Indonesia: A view from New Delhi
Indonesia, India, Brazil and South Africa will help prevent BRICS from becoming a part of a bipolar international order, keeping it more in the center.
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Expanding: Russia's President Vladimir Putin gives a speech during the extended format meeting of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, on October 23. (Reuters/Alexander Nemenov)
After considerable negotiation, BRICS decided to invite 13 new partner countries. These will not be members of BRICS, but in a new category of partners. They evidently meet the criteria set forth in the 15th BRICS summit in Johannesburg last year.
It is recalled that at that summit, while adopting the criteria for admitting new partner countries, the summit suddenly decided to admit six countries as BRICS members directly. These included Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Among them, Argentina withdrew and the Saudis have remained diffident.
Indonesia would have been a definite shoo-in but balked at that time, saying that they had not yet had consultation among ASEAN countries to proceed. Now the winds of change are blowing in BRICS and ASEAN countries stand to gain. Among the 13 new partner countries, four, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, are from within ASEAN. None have had an ASEAN consultation prior to their initiative to reach out to BRICS.
India welcomes the expansion of the ASEAN presence in BRICS, even as partners, because they bring a semblance of balance and engagement and share a partnership with India. While Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam were keen to join, Indonesia’s change of heart has been most welcome since electing President Prabowo Subianto.
India welcomes Indonesia into the BRICS partnership as a steadfast and longstanding strategic partner bilaterally and through ASEAN and related regional bodies.
BRICS works on consensus and after the new members’ inclusion, this is more difficult to achieve as each brings their regional divisions into play.
Among the 22 countries in BRICS+ now, Africa has six, ASEAN has four, while Central Asia has two, Latin America, three and the Arab countries are now four.
