Carnegie Moscow Center
The heads of the BRICS states who gathered in Ufa for another summit have rather different ideas about why their countries are participating in this organization. The Carnegie Moscow Center asked a number of experts to comment on the motivation of BRICS’ key players: Brazil, India, Russia, and China
Vladimir Putin will likely see the BRICS summit as proof that the West’s attempts to isolate Russia have failed. However, Russia’s growing fascination with the BRICS and the SCO coincides with diminishing Chinese interest in both projects.
Recently-announced plans to lease 115,000 hectares of Russian land to China have fomented fears of Chinese colonization. The experience of other countries, however, indicates that the real risk would come from Russian officials themselves
If China and Russia manage to coordinate the Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road Economic Belt, the change will mean not only a more genuine partnership between Moscow and Beijing, but China’s arrival, with Russia’s support, as a truly Eurasian power.
Triumphant summits between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping may end with propaganda fanfare, but multilateral meetings are where one can really measure the progress of Russia’s “pivot to Asia”. Moscow’s showing at the recent Shangri-La Dialogue is an indicative example.
The Xi’s visit to Moscow was the realization of a “win-win” formula beloved by the Chinese. The negotiations between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin can be seen as a shared symbolic victory and as a broad declaration of good intentions, but the fight over who can benefit more in practical terms has already begun
Presidency of the BRICS will allow Moscow to position itself as a participant of an association that offers an alternative to the global world order, and the grouping’s summit in Ufa will give the Russian government an opportunity to present the country as a leader of the non-Western world.
Perhaps the most important document signed by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping on May 8 in Moscow is the joint declaration on the unification of the Moscow-backed Eurasian Economic Union and the Chinese Silk Road Economic Belt.
The story with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which ended to the benefit of Russian national interests, nevertheless exposes the weakness of the Russian decisionmaking process in relation to the Asia-Pacific.
The post-Soviet elites use the system that Lee Kuan Yew constructed in Singapore to justify political crackdown. However, Lee himself believed that resource-based dictatorships will fail to replicate Singapore’s success, since restricting freedoms is not the cornerstone of his model.