Xi Arrives In South Africa With A Message Urging BRICS To Become Geopolitical Rival To G7

Chinese President Xi Jinping has arrived in South Africa for the 15th BRICS summit, running from August 22-24, where he was greeted in Johannesburg by President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is hosting the summit in the executive capital of Pretoria.

It is merely the Chinese leader's second trip abroad this year, after in March he met his "dear friend" President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Putin will be absent for the BRICS meeting after South Africa signaled it was being pressured to enforce the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which would require the government to arrest the Russian leader.

Over 60 heads of state are expected in South Africa, with Foreign Minister Lavrov representing Russia in place of Putin, among other leading countries of Brazil, India, China and South Africa.

"I believe that this summit of the leaders of the member countries of the association will be an important milestone in the history of the development of the BRICS mechanism, that it will strengthen cohesion and cooperation among developing countries to an even higher level," the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry cited Xi Jinping as saying just ahead of the summit's first day.

According to the FT, "China will push the Brics bloc of emerging markets to become a full-scale rival to the G7 this week, as leaders from across the developing world gather to debate the forum’s biggest expansion in more than a decade."

However, there's reportedly fierce disagreement over whether to continue pursuing non-alignment for the economic interests of developing countries or to transform BRICS into a rival to the West.

Xi's pre-summit statement also laid out that the members of the association have become "a constructive force that optimizes global governance and promotes the democratization of international relations."

Illustrating the divide over the broader mission and scope of BRICS, FT cites further:

"If we expand Brics to account for a similar portion of world GDP as the G7, then our collective voice in the world will grow stronger," said one Chinese official, who declined to be identified.

Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s foreign minister, said this month it was “extremely wrong” to see a potential Brics expansion as an anti-western move. However, western capitals are likely to regard the possible additions of Iran, Belarus and Venezuela as a move to embrace allies of Russia and China.

But some influential countries like Brazil under left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are likely to be in Beijing's corner on this, given Lula has come out in favor of admitting for membership neighbors like Argentina and Venezuela - the latter a longtime enemy of Washington.

Some leaders also want to sea Saudi Arabia and the UAE admitted, which will trigger debate over conditions and criteria for expansion. Currently Saudi Arabia is the closest to becoming the newest member, given talks are ongoing. Over 20 more countries have sought and applied to join.

Shortly after Russian Foreign Minister's arrival at the airport tarmac in Johannesburg...

Despite rumblings that some countries, Russia among them, are pushing for the end of the dollar's dominance, the FT has cited diplomatic sources to note that a common currency is not on the agenda.