2023-08-23 09:30:31
The BRICS countries are in conclave in Johannesburg, South Africa, to discuss the enlargement of the bloc in search of a greater geopolitical role in a changing world. The goal is important. The summit aims neither more nor less to allow the club, formed in 2009, to play the role of “flagship” of the countries of the South and, therefore, to provoke an “overhaul” of international political and financial governance. However, experts question the viability and sustainability of the project. Indeed, this ambition comes up once morest, they note, the disparate nature of the group and even the divergent aims of its members, some of whom suffer from large economic deficits. + The false South African note + The name of South Africa is cited first. The country, which only joined the group in 2011, has always lagged behind in terms of economic performance compared to China, India, Russia and Brazil, countries that form the backbone of the club supposed to be a bloc of emerging countries. The figures support the arguments of the experts. During the first decade of the creation of the BRICS, the economy of China, the first economic power of the club, grew by 176%. The rate was around 110% for India, 60% for Russia and 47% for Brazil. During this period, South Africa’s economic growth continued to plummet, the result of the disastrous management of the African National Congress (ANC) in charge of the country since 1994. A modest growth of 3.17% in 2011 remains the best performance of the South African economy over the past decade. This rate fell to 0.66% in 2016 and then to 0.30% in 2019 before sinking to the calamitous level of -6.34% in 2020. In 2023, China’s GDP is expected to be 19 trillion dollars. , a figure 50 times higher than that of South Africa. In addition, the South African economy is only a quarter of that of Brazil, fourth in the BRICS economic ranking. Since 2014, South Africa has continued to see its sovereign rating downgraded by the major international rating agencies, witness to the state of collapse in which the country’s economy finds itself, plagued by long years of corruption. The figures are the perfect illustration of “the wrong note” that South Africa represents within the grouping. Pretoria’s inclusion in the grouping was seen as such from the start by Jim O’Neill, the former British economist at Goldman Sachs who became famous for coining the acronym BRIC, in reference to Brazil, Russia , India and China, long before the inclusion of South Africa “for purely political reasons”. In a note to investors, O’Neill wrote, “South Africa’s presence in BRICS is a liability”, saying that the country’s limited ability to fund initiatives in the bloc means that the country represents “a brake” on the group’s development initiatives. + The dream of leadership evaporated + Moreover, the “media hype” to which the leaders of the ANC indulged their hearts content on the occasion of the meeting in Johannesburg provides information on their relentlessness in defending a so-called “leadership” in Africa. Lyal White, a researcher at South Africa’s Brenthurst Foundation, says Pretoria is well and truly overtaken by other economic powers in Africa. A situation which shows, according to the researcher, the “insignificant” economic role of South Africa in a bloc in which it was admitted “for geopolitical reasons”, he agrees. Folashadé Soulé, a researcher at the British University of Oxford, underlines, for her part, that South Africa has lost much of its economic weight in Africa. The country can no longer claim to be the spokesperson for Africa, she says, recalling the many economic underperformances of South Africa on the continental level. + A dogmatic stance from another era + The researcher cites the decline in investment in South Africa with the entry into play of new, safer destinations and with more sustained economic growth. She believes that South Africa’s presence in the BRICS “serves the country’s foreign policy interests rather than those of Africa”. Many believe, in this regard, that the dogmatic and ideological posture of another time of Pretoria in the service of lost causes constitutes an additional obstacle to the capacity of the BRICS to deploy and achieve their economic objectives. An attitude that has earned South Africa the sad nickname of “lame duck” of this group. Even if South African leaders claim that this presence is an opportunity to promote African interests, it actually allows Pretoria to attract international attention despite its modest economic weight, notes the researcher, noting “serious suspicions” in Africa with regard to the real aims of South Africa within the BRICS.
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