Innovation as Influence: BRICS’ Growing Soft Power Through Technology
Abigail Darwish | 11 October 2024
Summary
Since its formation, BRICS has used technological development to help its members in the Global South become less dependent on their counterparts in the Global North.
This year, BRICS has reaffirmed its commitment to multilateral cooperation on tech, namely in modern urban development.
Tech has increasingly proven to be a means for revisionist powers such as Russia and China to advance new norms.
The waning influence of the U.S. and its allies to shape the global order has prompted countries in the Global South to rely on alternative power centres for their development. Initiatives such as BRICS (the intergovernmental organisation with members comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa; or ‘BRICS+’) have been highly successful in not only boosting development in the Global South, but also in moving away from traditional power centres and peripheries. This is especially notable in the case of Russia and China, whereby both have strategically used intergovernmental platforms such as BRICS to shift global norms. Indeed, now firmly in the orbit of soft power, technological development–be it from modern urban development to digital currency reform–has been a means through which Russia and China can advance new norms across the Global South.
Since its founding in 2009, BRICS has endeavoured to challenge the Global North’s domination of technologies and infrastructures. Though initiatives such as the ‘BRICS Cable’, their digital currency, or proposals for creating their own internet have not come to fruition, 2024 has thus far proved an important year in the developmental trajectory of the group. Russia, serving as the rotating president of BRICS this year, stated in January the importance of strengthening multilateralism through technology cooperation. More recently, Moscow hosted the BRICS Urban Future Forum on 18-19 September, reaffirming their commitment to this objective. With projections forecasting that half of the world’s megacities will soon be concentrated in BRICS countries, Moscow foregrounded tech as central to their urban model, suggesting how tech will and is considered integral to the strategy of Global South development and catching up to its Northern counterparts. Significantly, Russia promoted its development blueprint for modern urban planning, specifically concerning countries managing rapid urbanisation and population growth. Indeed, the sharing of experiences amongst BRICS members, particularly “progress in digitalisation”, is of “great importance” in mitigating a development gap between its member states.
Whilst tech and AI governance is still in its heyday, since BRICS’ formation, the organisation has consistently sought to establish greater independence from the Global North, particularly in the technology arena. More generally, tech is increasingly at the forefront of the BRICS strategy, which indicates the extent to which technological development can and will likely continue to be a means of soft power for rising powers such as China and Russia.
AI-Generated / Open Art
Forecast
Short-Term
It is highly likely that technological advancement will continue to be a centrepiece of BRICS’ strategy in the realm of previous tech innovation efforts like digital currency reform.
It is likely that BRICS’ growing popularity amongst non-Western allied states–ranging from the Taliban in Afghanistan to Belarus–will have implications in the international arena, namely by crystallising a camp of West and non-Western allied states.
It is possible that continued sanctions against BRICS member states, particularly Russia and China, will encourage increased collaboration in the Global South. For instance, in subsequent exports of telecoms equipment and techological exchange.
Long-Term
It is almost certain that BRICS’ advancement in tech will exacerbate pre-existing tensions between China and the US and their ‘technological race.’
It is highly likely that BRICS’ success and growing popularity in the Global South will continue to obscure the North-South binary, and cement the world order as characteristically multipolar.
