The 3rd BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit began today in Sanya, China, with a new group name (it wasformerly ‘BRIC’) and memberSouth Africa present for the first time. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is representing India with a high-level delegation and will be in Sanya from April 12 to 15 for the important diplomatic event.
BRICS has so far held two summits—the first in Yekaterinburg, Russia in June 2009 and the second in Brasilia, Brazil in April 2010. This year’s Sanya summit is particularly important for two reasons. First, the group has an additional presence from the African continent. Second, all five members of BRICS are also members of the United Nations Security Council—Russia and China are permanent memberswith veto power, while the rest are non-permanent members with a fixed tenure of two years each.
During this BRICS Summit, Singh will have bilateral meetings with all members. However, he’ll likely be particularly intent on communicating with his Chinese counterpart rising Indian concerns surrounding issues such as the steadily increasing presence of Chinese troops in Pakistan and China’s continued discriminatory policy of issuing stapled visas to people from Jammu and Kashmir, while giving normal visas to people from the area known in India as Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Whether China will allow such issues to creep into the agenda is uncertain. In international diplomatic events, the host country is usually given a free hand to prepare the agenda. So with this BRICS summit China’s been granted the same privilege and it’s finalized four main topics for discussions: 1. the international situation at the present time, 2. international economic and financial issues, 3. development issues, and 4. cooperation amongst BRICS countries.
BRICS’ importance is underscored by the fact that the grouping represents about 26 percent of world’s geographic area, 40 percent of the world’s population, and the member countries are among some of the world’s current fastest growing economies.
Fittingly, there should be a deep focus on trade and investment.
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Sam
Dear Frankie the slant eyed Chinky here
Why do you think there are Chinatowns in each American state and city in coastal USA if Chinese had no masters?
Here is how the Americans viewed the Chinese (and Indians and blacks) in the 19th Century according the Bancroft Library at Berkeley:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/chineseinca/antichinese.html
While Indians fought in every war and gave their blood and were sought after, the Chinese were busy being coolies in every country!
How’s that racism working out for you!
Sam
Chinese added melamine to powdered milk and baby food.
Chinese added lead to paint in baby toys.
Chinese do not care about customer health only profits.
Their customers fell sick while they became fat.
Their employees were paid so poorly, some committed suicide at Foxconn.
The employees live in rooms with upto 12 people each.
They like to feed on their own people.
They are masters at this kind of manufacturing.
They have a tradition!
Sounds like Frank to me.
GK
China’s modern day manufacturing awesomeness evolved from ultimate “jugaadu” techniques, do whatever it takes to break the price barrier and flood the market. Some of these techniques included using low quality raw-materials, avoiding expensive engineering guidelines, avoiding stringent methodology (cutting corners), policy for “mass producing” whatever they produce and last but not the least HEAVY GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES!!
The impact that this has had from an Indian (for that matter any non chinese) standpoint can be described in phases. Phase 1 – Heavy diverting of orders to chinese manufacturers, Shutting down of local factories, heavy profits for traders. Phase two – Realization of sub standard quality, trading losses, blacklisting of chinese firms.
Unfortunately, since some industries have a very long “feedback loop” it takes a really long time to transit from phase 1 to phase 2, having said that I also admit that there are some cases where phase 2 never really comes up, for example, chinese mobile phones – people want cheap phones, people get cheap phones and business grows!
All in all as a high end consumer I would refrain from buying anything Chinese made. I can also say that the success of chinese production comes from the necessity and low purchasing power of the consumer rather than out of buyers choice.
Johnny
@Frank I am extremely proud of my country and the principles it stands for.
People like you who give bad name to their country by posting stupid racism wont understand it.
I gave my reason clearly in post above. Read it If your shallow mind can comprehend more than two lines.
If you think that you gave China a good name by racist remarks then let me tell you buddy, you are more than just wrong. You have damaged its reputation more than those debating against its policies.
Its an strange world we live in…
Johnny
@Rajeev No thanks, and I will give my reason. The ‘debates’ of our Chinese friends are based entirely on nationality. It wont matter what you write and whether it is right or wrong they always counter them by remarks about nationality.
If you are an Taiwanese then as per John Chan ‘You are an hideous traitor and human garbage’
If you are Indian then as per Frank ‘You are slave, wiggle tail etc’
If you are Chinese then ‘You are a traitor or terrorist’
If you are American then your are ‘an monster, nazi among other things’
If your are Vietnamese then you are an ‘lier, thieve etc’
So if you aiming to debunk their propaganda then it would be wise not to disclose your nationality as truth and facts are independent of nationality/race. Nothing hurts propaganda more than truth and to avert this they will definitely try to derail discussion. It happens with many, John was also astonished when he was suddenly declared Indian after debunking an warped post about geography by one of our Chinese friends. They need your nationality only to bash it instead of arguing on points. When people like JohnChan are posting stuff like
“As the international laws stipulate that it is your territory only if you can maintain sovereignty over it, therefore Japan and many European nations are open to be claimed by China on the basis of historical facts that they were part of China once upon a time. ”
To assume that you can properly debate with someone like him without his resorting to racism/country bashing is naive.
Frank
Once a Chinese, always a Chinese.
EAM
Here is a view of the BRICs from GT, quite a fair analysis IMOH.
http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/editorial/2011-04/644843.html
Regarding the nationality of bloggers, I am not sure how important that is. I think one’s political leanings are more important. I will usually have more in common with a Chinese, an Indian, an American or an Indonesian with similar disposition than with some of my own. For what its worth, my inclinations are those of a liberal internationalist (there are still a few of us left) who thinks that we can do a lot better through working together than engaging in stupid conflicts. I recommend Barbara Tuchman’s March of Folly, the best study to my knowledge of how states entter into conflicts even where a rational alternative that better protected the states in question was available (eg the case of the Vietnam War). The BRICs from that perspective is a good thing, in particular the way it it seems to be evolving, especially if both the “C” and the “I” remained in it.
EAM
I have already said that I am Australian.
Rajeev Sharma
With respect and deference, I just have one suggestion — though my experience tells me it won’t work. Nevertheless, here is the suggestion. How about Frank, Johnny and EAM disclosing more about themselves. They can perhaps start with their nationalities which have been talked about a great deal here and other posts at THE DIPLOMAT.
Frank
I said Indians need masters.
I said: “EAM is a white man. Johnny is not.”
Why do you have to imagine that I support terrorism? Do you also imagine that I have an elephant nose? Or I am a blue person?
A little imagination is a good thing. If you started to really believe your imaginations, you have mental problems.
Johnny
@Frank You may think that you are just trolling but your comments show a deep flaw in your psychology. A healthy mind wont suggest terrorism/racism in 21st century. I don’t know if you got education in a communist school or a madarsa but your comments show zero knowledge of world. World has moved on but you it seems were left behind… get a shrink and read some good books.
Frank
EAM is a white man. Johnny is not.
I said Indians need masters. If you ask me who was India’s masters, I could give you a loooong list.
Greeks, Persians, Mongols, French, English, Japanese, Germans, etc, etc.
Each Indian has different masters.
Call center Indians surely has American masters. I get calls from Johnny with a heavy Indian accent.
Very polite, sounds like a servant.
Johnny
@EAM Don’t you know he has labeled you as an Indian too as he quoted your comment as “This is a good Indian joke.”
Welcome to the Club! We hope you enjoy Frank’s mindless racist comments!
EAM
Frank, please clarify. Who is India’s master? Russia, China, the US, Brazil, South Africa – or all of them?
Frank
India is a camp follower, a follower to Indian’s masters.
Have you heard the saying?
Cat needs staffs, Indian needs masters.
EAM
Do you really think that China believe it can bend the organisation to its needs – or would even try? India and Russia are hardly liable to become camp followers and both pursue their own interests with determination. The US thought it could control Russia during the Yeltsin years but Russia has gone its own way – as has India. The India refusal to send troops to Iraq and curtail its ties with Iran despite US pressure stand as examples. Even Brazil is emerging as a strong player with its own agenda which can be directly at odds with the US agenda (be trying a broker a deal for Iran). Bringing more members in will make it even more difficult for any one member to be in control. South Africa too does its own thing.
Johnny
BRICS is an ok idea but they have one major problem as China is there only to disturb the working of these summits and seek justification for its oppression of common Chinese. It will be a good idea to give them a cold finger, preferably the middle one.
Frank
They need drop the vowel.