ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s bid to join the BRICS economic bloc signals a major strategic intent for the country to join the world’s fastest growing and influential economies and underlines its desire to become an integral player in the emerging global south.
This was stated by Mushahid Hussain Saeed, former Senator and director of the Pakistan China Institute and the Pakistan Institute of African Development Studies, at the International BRICS Forum held in the Russian Far Eastern port city of Vladivostok.
The two-day forum was organized by Russia’s ruling United Russia party.
Last November, Pakistan formally applied to join BRICS, a coalition of emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The group gained four new members last year — Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates — and has become known as BRICS+. Islamabad’s application comes at a time when BRICS is gaining recognition as the leading group representing the southern hemisphere.
Pakistan is one of 29 countries that have applied to join the BRICS, a grouping that accounts for nearly half of the world’s population and 30 percent of the world’s GDP. Moreover, 50 percent of the world’s oil and gas producing countries are members of the bloc.
Said said an enlarged BRICS could significantly transform contemporary international relations in three key ways. First, he predicted that BRICS would promote the democratization of international relations, fostering dialogue and relations between nations based on equality and the rule of law, rather than hierarchical power structures.
Second, he suggested that BRICS could lead to the demilitarization of international relations and counter the current Western-led order, which he characterized as militarizing the current …
Third, Said discussed the de-dollarization of the international financial system, emphasizing the US’s use of the dollar as a political weapon. He noted that 68 of the 193 UN member states have already started to move away from the US dollar, and we are seeing major changes such as Saudi Arabia abandoning a 50-year-old dollar-only agreement for oil trade with the US and now opting for a non-dollar currency.
Through these changes, Said believed that the BRICS could reduce US economic influence in the world and promote a more multipolar world order.
“The post-World War II Western global economic and political order is already crumbling, and organisations such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will be the pillars of this new world order,” Said said.
Regarding the need for a new approach to security issues, we welcomed President Putin’s proposal on June 14 for a new Eurasian security paradigm based on indivisible security among nations, so that the security of any one country is not sacrificed for that of another.
He also praised similar efforts by President Xi Jinping for his “Global Security Initiative.”
Published in Dawn on June 20, 2024
