By Dr. Jin Liangxiang, SIIS
‘Iran’s accession into BRICS is also a milestone in China-Iran relations’
August 24 saw BRICS adopted Iran together with five other countries as new members defying Western rhetoric and discourse weakening the mechanism. The historic enlargement of BRICS will create new momentum for the mechanism itself and will enhance global efforts resisting hegemony and unilateralism.
Iran’s admission will not only improve the standing of the mechanism but also enhance Iran’s position in the international community.
The year 2023 marks the 17th anniversary of BRICS since its inception. Albeit different in geopolitical locations, political systems and cultural backgrounds, members of BRICS do share development-oriented agendas. Members are either newly emerging economies featuring high economic growth or developing countries aspiring for development. This is sharply different from the approach of the U.S. and the West to shape the world with a democratic model defined by their own. In addition, they all enshrine the principle of independence in their foreign policy.
Worthing of special mentioning is the spirit of BRICS. For long, member states have been very clear that the mechanism will be inclusive adhering to the principle of multilateralism and cultural diversity. The practices of BRICS had particularly demonstrated respect for all member states. That should be one of the reasons why BRICS had proved to be attractive, particularly for countries that had long been oppressed and humiliated by Western hegemonic powers.
In some ways, the development of BRICS reflected a very strong global trend of anti-hegemony and anti-unilateralism. Most BRICS members, like China, Russia and Brazil, had been vociferous about their dissatisfaction against US financial hegemony and the weaponization of dollar as a payment channel. None of the BRICS members had shared with the US and the West their discourse on the Russia-Ukraine conflicts, and none of them had sided with the US on its efforts to provoke the fire.
The Johannesburg Summit had sufficiently demonstrated the attraction of BRICS. Six countries had been admitted into the mechanisms, more than 20 countries had formally applied to enter the mechanism, more than 40 countries had expressed their wish to be part of the mechanism, and more than 60 countries across the world had participated in various activities of the Summit, which was about 30 percent of the member states of the UN.
The enlargement will predictably make BRICS more important in international affairs as the share of member states in world economy will increase significantly and the political representation of the mechanism will grow. Therefore, BRICS will not only serve to maintain the right direction of global governance in a variety of areas including trade and financial cooperation, which had become dysfunctional as a result of confrontational mentalities of some Western countries. BRICS will also boost business opportunities for both old and new industries of all their members, and will create opportunities for its member states to reshape and even reverse the unreasonable narratives of some western powers on various issues including Russia-Ukraine conflicts and other issues.
Iran’s membership will especially enhance Iran’s international status in the international community. Over the last decades, Iran has made friends across the world in defiance of the efforts of certain hegemonic powers to isolate Iran. Entering BRICS will mean new opportunities for Iran to improve its standing. President Raisi’s presence at the Johannesburg summit with delegates from more than sixty countries across the world had signified another breakthrough in its diplomacy against Western efforts of isolation. The previous one should be President Raisi’s presence at the SCO summit.
With the dual memberships in SCO and BRICS, Iran as a nation of great civilizations and economic potentials will see more opportunities to increase its international status. The leaders of BRICS countries have a valuable opportunity to leverage the space that has been created and enhance their mutual and multilateral interactions. Suppose that Iran will hold SCO and BRICS summits, it will mean that dozens of heads of state and governments will travel to Tehran, which will naturally make Tehran a center of global politics and focus of international media, which will extremely nullify the efforts of the West to isolate Iran.
Multilateral diplomacy will mean natural economic opportunities. By presence at the summits, members have the opportunity to promote their business relations. Iran will also benefit from the joint efforts of de-dollarization judging by the consensus reached on this issue in Johannesburg. It should be considered that economic benefits would not come as soon as political achievements. However, it assumes that the policies adopted by Iran will contribute to the future strengthening of the country's economy.
Iran’s accession into BRICS is also a milestone in China-Iran relations. Iran’s application for BRICS membership, as well as SCO membership, not only demonstrated Iran’s identification with the principles and spirits of the BRICS, which could be generally categorized as inclusiveness, diversity and respect, but also trust for China as a major leading actor of BRICS. China’s support for Iran’s accession very well indicated that China had been very serious in helping Iran to get further integrated with international community. Mutual trust between the two will be further enhanced after Iran’s dual memberships.
Iran’s accession will secondly enhance China-Iran cooperation on the reconstruction of international order. It had long been China’s policy to oppose sanctions against Iran and to help improve Iran’s status in the international community as the two shared a long history of peaceful exchange of civilizations and shared the same experience struggling for justice and fairness of international order. With Iran’s membership in both SCO and BRICS, China and Iran, together with other countries in the two institutions, can better work together on issues relating to the great changes and reconstruction of international order.
It will thirdly serve to materialize concrete cooperation projects between the two. China and Iran both had been working hard to materialize the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership announced in 2016, the Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement in 2022 and various agreements in 2023 when President Raisi visited China. Iran’s accession into SCO and B
RICS will make these cooperations more feasible. In addition to bilateral mechanisms, leaders of the two sides will predictably meet with each other twice annually respectively within SCO and BRICS frameworks, and they can talk directly about the concrete issues, which will greatly facilitate cooperation between the two.
All in all, the enlargement of BRICS will create new momentums for global governance and the evolution of international order for the benefits of emerging economies and developing countries and the whole world as well. Iran’s accession into BRICS, in addition to SCO, will greatly enhance Iran’s international status and will benefit Iran economically. The world will see how Iran can translate these new political momentums into economic benefits.
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