At BRICS summit, Putin rails against West from afar as divisions emerge
globalnews.caBRICS leaders met on Tuesday to plot the future course of the bloc of developing nations but divisions re-emerged ahead of a critical debate over a potential expansion of the group intended to boost its global clout.Heightened tensions in the wake of the Ukraine war and Beijing’s growing rivalry with the United States have pushed China and Russia — whose President Vladimir Putin will attend the meeting virtually — to seek to strengthen BRICS.They are seeking to use the Aug.
22-24 summit in Johannesburg to forge the grouping, which also includes South Africa, Brazil and India, into a counterweight to Western dominance of global institutions.“Right now, changes in the world, in our times, and in history are unfolding in ways like never before, bringing human society to a critical juncture,” China’s President Xi Jinping said in remarks delivered at a BRICS business forum.“The course of history will be shaped by the choices we make.”Expansion has long been a goal of China, which hopes that broader membership will lend clout to a grouping already home to some 40% of the world’s population and a quarter of global gross domestic product.Xi skipped the event, despite the presence there of counterparts Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.His remarks were delivered by Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, and it was not immediately clear why Xi, who had a meeting with host Ramaphosa earlier in the day, did not attend.Comments from Brazil’s Lula pointed to a divergence of vision within the bloc, which political analysts say has long struggled to form a coherent view of its role in the global order.“We do not want to be a counterpoint to the G7, G20
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