by Refaat Badawi
The 15th BRICS Summit is being held in South Africa on Aug. 22-24 after invitations were extended to the leaders of more than 60 countries and representatives of 20 international organizations, with over 50 countries having confirmed their participation and attendance, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandora said last week.
At the summit, more than 20 countries are expected to apply for joining the group, whose five founders hope this momentum will contribute to building a multipolar world.
There is no doubt that significant challenges and critical decisions on the economic and political levels await countries participating in the summit after seeing the incredible momentum of nations across the world aspiring to join this promising convention, seeking to promote the establishment of a new global economic order in which justice and equality prevail for the benefit of peoples and countries, especially those that were initially plundered by America and its state agents in the West.
We are on the verge of a significant change in the map of the global economic system. The summit will be a turning point in creating a multipolar world as an alternative to the unilateral American system, which is fading away.
This system is notorious for plundering the wealth of nations and impeding their development in favor of Western policies at the expense of their people and future generations.
It is enough for us to monitor the policy of financial loans adopted by the so-called World Bank, or the International Monetary Fund, which faithfully implement the dictates of the American administration in Washington. We can discover the targets of the prevailing American unilateral economic system based on blackmail, hegemony, robbery and subjugation approaches practiced by the U.S. vis a vis other countries in the world, including our Arab region, and particularly Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Sudan.
These international institutions do not offer soft loans unless the benefitting countries adhere to the implementation of the American political, economic, and even cultural agenda, as is happening recently, by promoting homosexuality under the pretext of human rights.
Among the most significant achievements of the BRICS group is the creation of the New Development Bank (NDB) in 2014, whose board of directors is currently being chaired by former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, and it is a multilateral development bank managed by the five BRICS countries with a capital of 50 billion U.S. dollars, which is capable of reaching 100 billion dollars within two years.
The primary role of this bank is to grant loans in billions of dollars to finance development projects in the field of basic infrastructure, technology and energy, health and education, agriculture and irrigation, and so on, in the member countries of the group, as well as emerging countries.
In my point of view, the most important goals the BRICS founding countries seek to achieve are:
-- Comprehensive economic growth in the world to eradicate the scourge of poverty, address unemployment and promote economic and social integration, just as China has succeeded in doing.
-- Improving the quality of growth by encouraging innovative economic development through technology development and developing individual and group skills.
-- Promoting security and peace for economic growth and political stability in the world, as is what China seeks to do by bringing points of view closer and resolving differences through diplomatic means between the opposing countries. A good example is the Beijing-sponsored agreement to restore diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia and its practical proposals to bring peace between Russia and Ukraine.
-- Cooperating with the international community to maintain stability and improve the global trade and investment environment, in addition to combatting climate change, providing humanitarian assistance, and reducing the risks of natural disasters, which include addressing issues such as global food security.
-- Cooperation between BRICS countries in science and education and participation in basic research and advanced technological development.
The BRICS member states seek to achieve these lofty goals, which contribute to building cohesive societies and guarantee worldwide multilateral and fair economic cooperation.
In contrast, the United States of America has not, in its history, sought to achieve any of the above-mentioned goals. Instead, it has used its banks to incite regimes against their people and adopted a method of plundering the wealth of countries while preventing their progress and development and abolishing the role of industry in addition to monopolizing agricultural and food production in favor of American companies. It also imposes the principle of transfer or SWIFT between banks exclusively in U.S. dollars to ensure U.S. control of the worldwide economic cycle.
The hopes of people yearning for liberation from American hegemony and influence depend on the success of BRICS in forming a new multipolar economic system to escape from the unilateral American system.
China's pioneering experience is worthwhile. The world should benefit from China's experience, which succeeded brilliantly in promoting development and human capabilities, eradicating the scourge of poverty, and maintaining a very advanced level of technology, energy, and experience in building railways, train tunnels and other infrastructure development. We also saw that these successes would allow China to achieve everything that would break the American monopoly, especially since China's slogan is cooperation with all countries based on a win-win principle.
We see that China's bright history, far from any colonialism or extortion of states, qualifies it to assume the leadership initiative of the new multilateral system, and in our humble opinion, China can play a pivotal role in the field of economic and technological development aimed at eliminating poverty, prompting the principle of generational education, in addition to China's preservation of culture and civilization and its respect for the cultures and civilizations of the participating countries.
Editor's note: Refaat Badawi is a political analyst and adviser to former Lebanese Prime Minister Salim al-Hoss.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Xinhua News Agency.
