Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the “High-level Dialogue on Global Development” held on the 24th by video. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs website
China is weaponizing cooperation between developing countries against the strengthening of alliances with advanced countries in the West, including the United States. It is an attempt to counter the siege of China by gathering forces under the pretext of developing countries. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South African Republic) summit and the ‘Global Development High-level Dialogue’, which China recently held as the chair country, are evaluated as an opportunity to lay a foothold.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China on the 26th, the high-level summit on global development held on the 24th presided over by President Xi Jinping (習近平) was attended by the heads of all 18 countries, including five BRICS member states. The high-level global development summit was a place for summits to materialize the ‘BRICS plus (+)’ initiative proposed by China to expand the BRICS, a gathering of emerging economies. The BRICS Plus initiative contains China’s intention to bring emerging and developing countries into the framework of the BRICS to counter the world order centered on the US and other Western advanced countries.
The aspect of the countries that will participate in this initiative amid the intensifying US-China conflict is also of interest. If you look at the countries participating in the conference, which are likely to participate in BRICS Plus, countries from various regions such as Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Central and South America are included. Among the participating countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand are participating in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), an economic consultative body designed to contain China, led by the United States.
While blatantly checking the US in front of the heads of these countries, President Xi emphasized the need for cooperation between developing countries by highlighting the topic of ‘development’. In a speech at the high-level dialogue, he said, “We must jointly create an international environment favorable for development. We create opposition,” he said, striking the United States directly. “China has always been part of the extended family of developing countries, and the economies of emerging markets and developing countries already account for half the world,” he said. He also announced a plan to increase investment in global development cooperation, such as increasing the South-South cooperation (cooperation between developing countries) aid fund into the ‘Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund’ and increasing the amount by US$ 1 billion (about 1.3 trillion won).
This is interpreted as revealing his intention to confront the US-led international order and the encirclement of China by enticing the developing countries with the ‘carrot policy’ of expanding support while taking on the role of the eldest as the world’s largest developing country. Through the BRICS summit and high-level talks, China has also achieved its intended purpose to some extent. This is because the BRICS leaders formed a consensus on the promotion of membership expansion and laid the foundation for expansion of power by bringing together 10 countries. It also had the effect of showing off taxation ahead of the US-led G7 and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summits to be held one after another from this day. In an editorial on the 25th, China’s state-run Global Times said, “BRICS showed true multilateralism with the spirit of openness and inclusion, cooperation and win-win. Thailand and Indonesia) were also included.
However, there seems to be a limit to China’s expansion and use of the BRICS as a multilateral cooperation framework to contain the US despite certain achievements. India, which is a member of the BRICs and participates in the US-led quadruple security consultative body, is checking China’s expansion of power, and there is a high possibility that countries participating in BRICS+ will try to balance between the US and China in the future. Because. However, from China’s point of view, it can try to bring in IPEF participating countries, etc., into the domestic-led cooperation framework and try to check the effect of completely tilting towards the US.
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