BRICS, originally made up of just Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, will need a new name.
After 13 years without a new member, the international grouping of non-Western countries welcomed Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last August. Since then, the doors have been open: In February, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor claimed that more than 30 countries now want to join the international group.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is keen to join the bloc and has been lobbying officials from Russia, China and, this week, India about Malaysia's application. Thailand also formally submitted its application for membership last June, and officials hope the Southeast Asian country will be able to attend the BRICS summit in Russia this October.
The BRICS, whose name comes from a 2001 Goldman Sachs report, has long struggled to find economic or geopolitical purpose as its member countries have little in common other than being large and non-Western.
But in recent years, the European Union has sought to position itself as a voice for the so-called Global South, a term used to describe post-colonial developing countries, a debate that has gained momentum since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which brought geopolitics back to the fore and highlighted US power in the global economic system.
“For some countries, the BRICS could be a counterweight to US economic hegemony,” said Rahman Yaacob, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute's Southeast Asia Program.
EU membership could also be a political risk-avoidance measure, as the intensifying conflict between Washington and Beijing threatens to split the world into two opposing camps.
“If the world is fragmenting into blocs, joining is better than leaving,” said Deborah Elmes, director of trade policy at the Heinrich Foundation.
Why do Malaysia and Thailand want to join BRICS?
China is already Malaysia's and other Southeast Asian countries' largest trading partner and the largest provider of development aid to several countries in the region, Rahman noted.
For Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar, joining BRICS could be a way for the Southeast Asian country to secure trade deals and investment.
“The intention to join BRICS could encourage Western countries to invest more in Malaysia and even encourage Malaysia to consider applying to join Western-aligned alliances such as the OECD,” explained Weng Chong Cheah, Asia Pacific analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Malaysia's semiconductor industry could also benefit from closer ties with China and India, Cheah explained, because those two huge consumer markets would be able to buy more Malaysian-made electronics. Joining BRICS could also lead to increased tourism from member countries, especially China and India.
Thailand may also be interested in BRICS as a way to jumpstart its struggling economy, with its tourism industry still struggling to recover from the COVID pandemic and growth slowing recently.
What are BRICS?
Jim O'Neill, former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, coined the term “BRIC” in 2001, arguing that Brazil, Russia, India and China would be the main drivers of global economic growth.
On June 16, 2009, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, China and India attended the first BRIC Summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
Dmitry Kostyukov—AFP/Getty Images
The four governments adopted the name when they formally launched the organisation at a summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 2009. In 2010, South Africa joined and the group added an “S” to its name, becoming BRICS.
In 2014, the group established its own development bank, the New Development Bank. Since it began operations in 2015, the bank has approved cumulative loans of more than $32 billion to member countries, and China expects to disburse another $5 billion this year.
Joining the BRICS group would be significant for Malaysia and Thailand: Their economies are twice the size of Ethiopia's and roughly the same as those of Iran and Egypt, while Malaysia's GDP per capita is just below China's.
Before last year's expansion, the original five BRICS countries already accounted for about 40 percent of the world's population and about a quarter of global GDP, according to World Bank data.
And with the addition of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the BRICS now account for nearly half of the world's oil supplies.
Can BRICS work?
In May, a Thai government spokesman suggested that joining BRICS would lead to the creation of a “new world order.”
But BRICS still has little track record: the bloc has no formal trade or investment agreements, for example.
China and India, by far the two largest economies among the BRICS, have not been on friendly terms, especially since a deadly border clash in 2020. India is also a member of the Quad, a grouping that also includes Japan, the United States and Australia, and U.S. officials have pointed to it as a potential counterweight to India's political and economic rise.
Cheah points out that BRICS includes US rivals such as Russia and Iran (as well as China), and potential members such as Malaysia and Thailand will need to “carefully balance their engagement” with the group.
It's also not clear whether countries under U.S. sanctions, such as Russia, can become reliable and significant trading partners, Rahman suggested.
One new member of the BRICS already knows how difficult it can be to balance between the US and China: The UAE, which has close military ties with the US, faced pressure from Washington for its AI startup G42 to cut tech ties with Chinese companies. The startup ultimately caved in and severed ties with Huawei.
But countries like Malaysia and Thailand may believe that the economic benefits of joining BRICS are worth the risks, especially since, as Elms points out, there are no strict requirements for BRICS membership.
