What does China's approach mean for BRICS?

Editor's note: Liu Zongyi, a special commentator for CGTN, is a senior fellow and director of the Center for South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Since its launch in 2006, the BRICS cooperation mechanism has developed over the past two decades. Following its historic expansion in 2024, BRICS entered a new phase of greater BRICS cooperation, becoming a flagship platform for solidarity and cooperation among Global South countries. Throughout this process, China has remained a central force in building and expanding the BRICS mechanism. The development of BRICS has always borne a distinct Chinese imprint.

China sustains the grouping's cohesion by acting as an open and inclusive "aggregator." Although China is the largest economy among BRICS countries, it recognizes that the members differ in political systems, levels of economic development and their geopolitical interests. Some members may even be formally within BRICS while politically leaning elsewhere.

These conditions make BRICS naturally inclined toward informal and consultative forms of cooperation. China has therefore consistently advocated the BRICS spirit of "openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation," opposing efforts to turn BRICS into an exclusive bloc or an instrument of confrontation.  

This position was clearly reflected in the decision on enlargement adopted at the 2023 Johannesburg Summit. The expansion substantially enhanced BRICS's representativeness on the global stage, while also increased efforts needed to balance different agenda among members. China's role is not to dominate the agenda unilaterally, but to preserve the mechanism's cohesion through resource contributions and issue-based initiatives.

At the same time, BRICS does not seek to overturn the existing international order. Rather, it seeks to reform global governance and expand the institutional space available to emerging economies. Within this institutional space, the public goods provided by China are of critical importance. This aggregating role differs fundamentally from that of a "leading state" in an alliance system. It represents genuine multilateralism.

Furthermore, China's proposals have gained wide acceptance within the BRICS framework because they are problem-oriented rather than ideology-driven. In its early years, BRICS aimed to promote reform of the global financial system. In financial cooperation, the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement remain BRICS's most substantive institutional achievements to date, and China represented a key actor in advancing both.

The New Development Bank is headquartered in Shanghai. As one of its largest shareholders, China has consistently supported a governance structure based on equal voting rights among member states, thereby avoiding unilateral control.  

During its BRICS chairmanship in 2022, China promoted alignment between the Global Development Initiative (GDI) and the BRICS agenda. Its priorities included the digital economy, supply-chain resilience, climate change and food security, with the aim of responding to the development needs shared by emerging economies. China has helped transform BRICS from a platform initially focused mainly on economic and trade cooperation into a comprehensive mechanism built on three pillars: political and security cooperation, economic and financial cooperation and people-to-people exchanges.

This framework is consistent with China's GDI, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative and Global Governance Initiative. Together, the initiatives seek to address the deficits in peace, development, security and governance that have become increasingly acute amid global instability.

In addition, China has promoted new models of cooperation through flexible, incremental institutional and conceptual innovation. In advancing BRICS cooperation, China emphasizes a path in which bilateral and multilateral engagement reinforce one another.  

Bilateral cooperation injects concrete projects into multilateral frameworks, while multilateral consensus provides political assurance for bilateral cooperation. This dual-track strategy reduces the transaction costs of BRICS cooperation and enables the mechanism to retain a minimum level of operational capacity.

In terms of innovative cooperation models, the "BRICS Plus" cooperation approach first proposed by China in 2017 represents a major breakthrough. It allows developing countries that are not full members to participate as dialogue partners, broadening participation in the BRICS agenda and strengthening development cooperation across the Global South.

At the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, in 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the overall, directional and strategic questions facing BRICS development. He proposed building a BRICS committed to peace, innovation, green development, justice and closer people-to-people exchanges. He also announced eight practical measures to support high-quality BRICS cooperation, further strengthening the institutional foundations of greater BRICS cooperation.

After 20 years of development, BRICS has entered a more mature stage. China will continue to define its central role in the development of the BRICS mechanism through institutions rather than power. From a broader perspective, China's practice within BRICS offers an alternative reference point for how major powers can contribute to multilateral mechanisms – one distinct from the traditional alliance-based model.

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