BRICS countries have every reason to stand together

Editor's Note: Leading Chinese experts on BRICS studies and international affairs attended a Beijing-based seminar hosted by the Pangoal Institution on Wednesday, where they exchanged views ahead of the eighth BRICS Summit to be held in Goa, India, on Saturday and Sunday. The following are excerpts of their comments:

He Yafei, former vice-minister of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and former vice-minister of Foreign Affairs

For a more inclusive global governance system

Despite doubts about its sustainability and performance, the BRICS mechanism has become a leader of developing countries, and close cooperation within the five-nation bloc will grant emerging economies a bigger say in global affairs.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis that hit most economies, the five members, namely Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa, are faced with certain difficulties such as imbalanced development, due to the lackluster global growth. But that does not justify the West's questioning the effectiveness of the transcontinental group, which actually stems from the advanced economies' concerns about the rise of these emerging economies.

The truth is that over the past decade or so, BRICS has become a mature, versatile platform for multinational cooperation among the five developing countries, which have outrun the West in terms of total GDP and are reshaping the geopolitical and global economic order.

Home to about 42 percent of the global population, 21 percent of the world's GDP, and nearly half of the world's foreign reserves, BRICS is now a major economic engine that has contributed over half of the global growth in the past decade and is playing an ever greater role in global governance.

However, BRICS is not aimed at destroying or replacing the global governance system led by the West, rather it looks to optimize it and make it more inclusive. The regular meetings among BRICS leaders, be they official or casual, do not just deepen the economic and financial cooperation within the bloc, they also raise the voice of all emerging economies in international affairs.

The BRICS New Development Bank, for example, has great potential to provide more financing options for BRICS members and better protect their currencies from financial shocks. The green bonds it issued this year are another example of the BRICS mechanism's efficiency and determination to reduce poverty worldwide.

Liu Zhenye, deputy director of the Globalization and Global Issues Institute at the China University of Political Science and Law