China’s global domination will affect India’s presence in SCO and BRICS?
China will likely become a major economic and military power in the next decade. As a result, India may be left out of the SCO and BRICS groups, as most of their members receive significant infrastructure aid from China through the Belt-Road Initiative (BRI).
Although Brazil has not yet joined the BRI, its Leftist President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, recently received around USD 66 billion in infrastructure investment from China. He has established a friendly relationship with President Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing.
It is certain that China, with its economic and political clout, will outgun every member of these two groups, with the notable exception of India.
Also, they will attempt to impose their vision of world order on multilateral groups. In 2023, India will host the SCO summit, while Brazil will host the BRICS summit.
While India is pushing for English to be a working language in the SCO alongside Mandarin and Russian, the multilateral institution encounters the challenge of Beijing using these platforms to disseminate President Xi Jinping’s vision of international order, such as the Global Security Initiative (GSI) as well as Global Development Initiative (GDI).
During the 2017 SCO summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, China proposed adding President Xi Jinping’s 14-point Thought to the communique.
This was discussed at the SCO Foreign Minister’s Meeting on June 18-19, 2017. India, which had just become a formal member of SCO that year, was represented by Gen Vijay Kumar Singh, then Minister of State for External Affairs.
However, India opposed the inclusion of President Xi Jinping’s “Thoughts on Socialism with the Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”. Instead, it wanted to address cross-border terrorism in the same communique, given Pakistan’s membership.
As a result, the proposal to include President Xi Jinping’s 14-point Thought was dropped.
Just as the SCO faces the difficulty of becoming China-centric with Russia embroiled in the Ukraine war, the BRICS platform encounters the same challenges, with South Africa receiving over USD six billion in BRI investment from Beijing and Russia receiving over USD ten billion in BRI investment from the Middle Kingdom.
While India, under Narendra Modi, is willing to stand alone in both the SCO and the BRICS on its convictions while also willing to collaborate with fellow members on good global issues, the situation is becoming more complicated with the addition of new SCO members—Iran and Belarus—who are also part of the Chinese BRI project.
According to global observers, even if most governments are part of the Chinese BRI, they have a strong sense of national interest. They will judge based on their national interests, particularly power like Russia, rather than the aid provided by Beijing.
All decisions in the SCO and BRICS are made by consensus is a saving grace.
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