BRICS not anti-West but a facilitator of fairness and justice for Global South: China Daily editorial

The way some in the West, as indicated by some Western mainstream media's biased reports, see the ongoing BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, explains why the grouping has been gaining in strength, size and significance.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has to some extent reinforced these people's belief that, by hosting leaders from more than 30 Global South countries in the biggest multilateral event it has held in recent years, Russia is trying to show that the West cannot isolate it.

Yet that's the reading of only some in the West.

That the Kazan summit is witnessing the initial four BRIC members in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009 increase more than twofold — not to mention the presence of major countries from all continents barring Oceania — cannot be explained by what some Western politicians interpret as "some developing countries' club" but by the underlying requirements of development and international relations.

The changing nature of economic globalization over the past two decades not only gave birth to the grouping as an economic bloc of emerging market economies in 2006 but also boosted its growth in the following years, because the representation of developing countries in the West-led international organizations, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, was disproportionately low.

No wonder a key subject on the Kazan summit's agenda is to contribute to the formation of truly representational financial, trading and transaction systems that can help the developing countries to reduce their dependence on the US dollar-centered global economic structure in order to promote fair economic globalization.

It is the United States' unilateral and hegemonic moves in almost all fields that have been pushing an increasing number of countries, even its allies, toward BRICS. Those biased Western politicians should be reminded that it is the developed countries that have taken advantage of the Global South by maintaining their privileges in international relations and setting rules for global financial, trade and technology sectors.

The knee-jerk response of some in the West to BRICS' growth has been to cast it in an anti-West light, when the fact is that the grouping, by natural progression, may be non-West, but it is certainly not anti-West. Instead, all platforms, projects and institutions it promotes are open to Western countries.

What the grouping strives for is to help build a fair and just world order, rather than a West-free world, with the aim of improving global governance and boosting global cooperation to address common global challenges such as climate change.

The world is facing more and more grave issues, including the crises in the Middle East, Ukraine, and on the Korean Peninsula, not because of the collective awakening of developing countries but because the Western powers have long deprived them of their rights to decide their own destiny and participate as equals in global decision-making.

The development and expansion of BRICS should not be seen as a challenge by the West, but as the world's organic progress toward multilateralism in the true sense of the term.

The Global South is bound by the shared principle of respect for all countries' sovereignty and right to decide their respective future. It is no longer the "silent majority"; instead, it has become a key force in the transformation of the world order.

So countries that don't seek to maintain the unfair and unjust world order have no reason to worry about the growth of BRICS. Rather they should welcome the changes being brought about by the grouping with its vision, vitality and potential. Also, they should reflect on how they initially responded to the formation of BRICS — as a "talking shop" — without realizing that its members, China in particular, were determined to develop it into the collective voice of the Global South. China has been, is and will be a member of and driving force behind BRICS and the Global South at large, sharing its experiences and development benefits with other developing countries.