China, Russia Deliver Broadsides Against the West at Brics Summit
Brics this week to air their grievances against Western powers, present themselves as defenders of developing economies and set out the case for an alternative international order. Russian President Vladimir Putin, addressing the South African summit by video, accused the West of provoking everything from the war in Ukraine and global inflation to hunger in the world’s most vulnerable countries by hampering Russian grain and fertilizer sales through sanctions.
Leaders of Brics nations Brazil, India, China and South Africa, gathered in Johannesburg with Putin—who faces an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine—joining by video. “Our actions in Ukraine are dictated by only one thing, to bring an end to the war that was unleashed by the West," he said, with the flags of other Brics countries behind him.
The annual summit provides both China and Russia with an opportunity to set out their complaints against the West and voice support for the increasingly important developing economies of Africa, South America and Asia. While no formal alliance exists between Beijing and Moscow, their leaders have coordinated on anti-Western messaging.
Their relationship has grown only more important as Russia’s economy has become more dependent on China, in turn helping Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine. As well as blaming the West for the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin leader called Western allies’ increasing ties with the former Soviet republic a form of neocolonialism.
Putin also praised what he said were the group’s efforts to advance the interests of Africa and Asia, in contrast to the West, which he said, in a separate speech late Tuesday, had wreaked havoc with the world economy to pursue its own economic ends. As
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