Seth J. Frantzman
Jerusalem Post, Aug. 24, 2023
“the real story here is the growth in influence in Middle East states. Saudi Arabia, for instance has hosted recent meetings with China. Riyadh also recently hosted Iran’s foreign minister and China has supported Iran in recent conversations with Iran’s foreign minister as well.”
The BRICS economic group, which includes many large countries, such as China and India, is seeking to expand into the Middle East by inviting the UAE, Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia to join. This is a major outcome of the recent BRICS meeting in South Africa, where the current members – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – met.
BRICS is important because it’s a non-Western economic grouping. In a world where Russia and China are increasingly at odds with the West, any meetings where Russia and China are present with a series of other countries has potential to undermine the West and the US-led world order, which was established at the end of the Cold War.
Many countries, including Iran, have been seeking to play a larger role in working with Russia and China in recent years and also in outreach to India. Iran, for instance, seeks to play a role in the SCO and CICA, other groups of countries that include China or Central Asian states. Iran joined the SCO this year.
BRICS began by including major large countries from various continents, such as Brazil from the Americas and South Africa from Africa. India dominates South Asia, and China and Russia are obvious members as well.
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