On August 24, 2023 BRICS adopted Iran together with five
other countries as new members defying Western rhetoric and discourse. The
historic enlargement of BRICS will create new opportunities and will enhance
global efforts against hegemony and unilateralism.
The year 2023 marks the 17th anniversary of BRICS 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 United
States 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.
BRICS 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.
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.
Presence of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at the
Johannesburg summit with delegates from more than sixty countries across the
world had signified another breakthrough in its diplomacy against Western efforts
to isolate the Islamic Republic.
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. If Iran holds 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
with other countries in the two institutions, can work better together on
issues relating to the great changes and reconstruction of international order.
On top of all, it will serve to materialize cooperation
projects between the two countries. 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 BRICS 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.