Indonesia has expressed its desire to join the BRICS group of major emerging economies, in a bid to bolster the domestic economic agenda of President Prabowo Subianto.
In a statement issued last night from Kazan, Russia, where BRICS is holding its annual summit, newly appointed Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono announced that Indonesia planned to seek full membership.
“Indonesia joining BRICS embodies the country’s active and free foreign policy,” Sugiono said in the statement, according to a report in the Jakarta Globe. “It does not mean that we are joining a certain camp, but we actively participate in all forums.”
The announcement is the first major foreign policy initiative of Prabowo Subianto, who was sworn into office on October 20, and has promised to pursue a “good neighbor policy.”
The BRICS membership announcement, which comes a year after President Joko Widodo decided not to pursue membership after last year’s BRICS summit in Johannesburg, is the first manifestation of the omnidirectional “good neighbor” foreign policy that Prabowo has pledged to pursue. During his inauguration speech on October 20, the new leader said that his administration “will adopt the old philosophy of ‘having a thousand friends is too few, one enemy is too many’.”
He added, “We wish to be good friends with all countries, but we will embrace the principle of anti-colonialism. … We are against oppression because we have been oppressed before.”
In his statement yesterday, Sugiono said that BRICS priorities align with the main priorities of the Prabowo administration, including “food and energy security, poverty eradication, as well as human capital development.”
The BRICS grouping, named after its core members – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – is currently in an expansionary phase, having admitted Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) earlier this year.
The Indonesian announcement came a day after Indonesia and three Southeast Asian neighbors – Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand – became partner countries of BRICS, in a possible step toward full membership. The four Southeast Asian nations were among 13 nations that joined yesterday as partner countries, the others being Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Turkey, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. The economies of the current BRICS member states collectively make up about 28 percent of the global economy.
Earlier this year, both Malaysia and Thailand announced that they had formally applied for BRICS membership. Addressing the BRICS Summit yesterday, Malaysia’s Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli said that the country’s application was “centered on building economic partnerships, strengthening trade ties, and expanding our growth potential.” Back in May, Thai government spokesperson Chai Wacharonke said that BRICS membership would “benefit Thailand in many dimensions, including enhancing the country’s role in the international arena and increasing its opportunities to co-create a new world order,” according to the Bangkok Post.
While Vietnam has not yet officially applied for full membership in BRICS, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said today on its online portal that his country “stands ready to work with BRICS countries and the international community to realize the idea of working together to build a better world for all.”
Many Western observers are skeptical about the viability and cohesion of BRICS as an international grouping, and are unconvinced that new members will benefit in any real way from membership. But seen against a backdrop of growing geopolitical tensions, particularly between China and Russia on the one hand, and the United States and its allies on the other, joining the new grouping makes a certain degree of sense.
Given that Thailand and Indonesia have also applied to join the OECD, and that all four nations have more or less productive economic, political, and security relationships with the United States and its principal partners, their desire for BRICS membership is perhaps best seen as a means of navigating the increasingly turbulent international waters and signaling their non-alignment between the two emergent geoeconomic blocs. If they benefit economically in some way from membership, so much the better.
In a recent article for Foreign Policy, Sarang Shidore, the director of the Quincy Institute’s Global South Program, argued that the Thai and Malaysian bids to join BRICS were a way of “signaling continued dissatisfaction with the U.S.-led global order,” and an attempt “to proactively hedge in a world in which U.S. relative power is slowly eroding and the future of the global order is highly uncertain.” Instead of “choosing” between competing geoeconomic blocs, Indonesia and its neighbors seem intent on planting one foot in both camps.