As the host of this year’s BRICS Summit, held in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China worked with other member countries – Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa - to assess the decade-long BRICS cooperation project and to draw up a blueprint for future development. The BRICS Summit theme: “Stronger Partnership for a Brighter Future”. Obviously, China has the largest economy of the five – in fact, China’s economy is more than 60% larger than the other four economies combined. So why is BRICS important to China? Does China’s disproportionate power mean that China dominates decision-making? How does China contribute to BRICS – for example, to the New Development Bank, the financial institution under BRICS? How do BRICS countries view the organization’s continuing or changing roles? More pointedly, how do BRICS countries manage their internal tensions? Moreover, why aren’t other large developing countries included, say, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, Pakistan? How serious is BRICS+? (Egypt, Guinea, Mexico, Tajikistan, Thailand also attended the Summit as observers.)

The rise of non-Western economies, exemplified by BRICS, is a tectonic shift in the long-standing world financial order. While BRICS countries, especially China, have benefited greatly from the existing global governing system, they are no longer content to play passively according to rules set by others. BRICS countries understandably demand reforms - proposing that current bodies of international finance be adjusted and new bodies be created. BRICS countries, however, have different ideas on how the institution should operate – whether more informally as a loose association or more formally with a secretariat and sub-institutions. As host of the 2017 Summit, China envisions BRICS as a platform for economic global governance, and it hopes that these meetings among heads of state can catalyze a strategic agenda for its future development.  But BRICS has systemic problems, especially vast economic and political differences among member states. Personally, looking long into the 21st Century, I’m watching China-India geopolitics. The future of BRICS is an open question, worth following to keep Closer To China.