Internal Divisions Ensure BRICS' Expansion Will Remain Slow

The 2023 summit of the BRICS economic bloc may finally lay the groundwork for future membership criteria and mechanisms to generate greater trade and financial flows using non-Western currencies, although internal divisions will slow this progress. South Africa will host the 15th summit of BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) on Aug. 22-4 in what is poised to be the bloc's most consequential meeting in nine years; it will also be the bloc's first in-person event since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. Two of the summit's major topics will be expanding the bloc's membership and increasing the use of non-dollar currencies in trade. Moreover, the summit's official theme, BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development and Inclusive Multilateralism, demonstrates how South Africa, China and Russia are pushing BRICS to engage with the Global South, with an eye to offsetting Western influence -- a...