With the reinforcement of the most populous country in Southeast Asia, the Brics are asserting themselves as a counterweight to the West within international institutions.
Indonesia “welcomed” Tuesday its formal entry into the Brics bloc, announced by Brazil which has just taken the rotating presidency of the bloc of emerging economies, of which China, India and Russia are also part. The entry of Southeast Asia's largest economy into the blocshows Indonesia's increasingly active role in global issues and its commitment to strengthening multilateral cooperation to create a more inclusive and just global structure”the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
On Monday, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that the most populous country in Southeast Asia “shares with other members the desire for reform of the institutions of global governance and contributes positively to cooperation within the Global South.
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Jakarta said it considered its membership of the BRICS as “a strategic step to improve collaboration and cooperation with other developing countries, based on the principle of equality, mutual respect and sustainable development“. Indonesia's candidacy was approved at a Brics summit in 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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Created in 2009, this bloc is increasingly seen as a counterweight to the West. South Africa joined the following year, followed more recently by countries such as Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates last year. Cooperation between countries «Sud global» and the reform of multilateral institutions are among the stated priorities of the Brazilian Brics presidency, which officially began on January 1. One of the objectives, according to the government of left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is the “development of means of payment” to facilitate trade between member countries.
During the last Brics summit, in November, in Kazan, Russia, the countries of the bloc raised the possibility of doing without the American dollar as the reference currency for these exchanges. In the process, the President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, threatened the countries of the group of “100% customs tariffs” if they created “a new BRICS currency” to replace the dollar. The Brics summit is due to take place this year in July in Rio de Janeiro.
