BRICS riding epochal tide to momentous summit
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The quintuplet is committed to cooperation not confrontation with developed countries, Yang stressed, repudiating the claim that the five major developing countries are conspiring to overthrow the existing international order and contend with Western powers for global clout.
What BRICS countries have been trying to do is to establish a cooperation mechanism and promote necessary reforms of the international systems to accommodate the new reality, and they do not hope to be misunderstood as an anti-West bloc, said Ravni Thakur, a professor at India's Delhi University who joined dozens of other experts and scholars from think tanks of the five member countries in a recent conference in Beijing on the further development of the quintuplet.
BRICS nations are promoting the development of developing countries and the entire world, Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo said at the think-tank forum. "It is the noble goal and the strong desire for peace, cooperation and development that made the five countries gather together."
Their aggregation is also a natural and inevitable outcome of the dynamic reshaping of the international situation, said Miller Matola, CEO of the International Marketing Council of South Africa, echoing many others that BRICS members have extensive common interests in enhancing their economic development, promoting reform of the international economic order, upholding free trade, curbing climate change and fighting hegemony.
During the past decade, BRIC has morphed from merely a term in O'Neill's report into an influential group on the ground covering Eurasia, South America and Africa, and boasting an arrangement of annual summits and a variety of cooperation initiatives in trade, industry, agriculture, statistics and think tanks among other sectors.
Matola told Xinhua that the BRICS framework is the most vigorous organization in the world.
A check of some basic facts will suffice to prove the vitality of the cooperative quintuplet. Their combined GDP accounts for 18 percent of the world total, they contributed over 60 percent to global economic growth in 2010, and trade between them grew at an average annual rate of 28 percent from 2001 to 2010 and reached 230 billion U.S. dollars in 2010. It is also widely projected that their total GDP would surpass that of the United States by 2020.
As a relatively new cooperation mechanism, the BRICS framework has been shooting up more rapidly than expected, has assumed an important role in a series of world affairs, and has made concrete achievements in such significant tasks as reining in the financial crisis, pushing for reform of the international monetary system and dealing with climate change, noted Tatjana Shaumyan, head of Indian studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).
Yet great potential for broader cooperation and more common benefit remains to be tapped. The quintuple cooperation regime is still in its infancy, but promises a bright future with a richer diversity of win-win cooperation programs as long as its member countries are patiently committed, said Vladimir Davydov, chief of Latin American studies at the RAS.
With only two formal summits held, BRICS countries seemingly have not meshed their viewpoints into a single voice, and thus still needs to further enhance their coordination, said Francoise Nicolas, a senior researcher at the French Institute of International Relations, adding that as a coordination platform, the quintuplet should play a larger role and seek more room for cooperation.
BRICS nations should inject more energy to strengthening win-win economic relations and exploring common markets while striving to upgrade cooperation on the political and diplomatic fronts, said Geoff Barnard, a senior economist working for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Noting that BRICS members remain developing countries in essence, Liu from the CIIS said that they still face many common challenges that demand better coordinated responses, especially at a time when the global economic recovery is still susceptible to the residual effects of the financial crisis.
These suggestions are exactly the aspirations of BRICS decision-makers. "With identical or similar concerns and standpoints on important global issues in economy, finance and development, the BRICS countries have the basis for broadening cooperation," said Wu, the Chinese assistant foreign minister.
Beijing expects BRICS countries to improve global economic governance by better coordinating their efforts to reform the international monetary system, tame fluctuations in bulk commodity prices, tackle climate change and achieve sustainable development, Wu added, resonating with calls for better institutionalization of the young organization.
Notwithstanding its current limitations, the BRICS mechanism has proved attractive to a number of other countries. Commenting on the issue of enlargement, Wu said, "Cooperation among BRICS countries is open, transparent and inclusive, and it will stick to the principle of unity, cooperation and common benefit."
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