What is Malaysia Seeking to Build by Joining BRICS?
A more active Malaysia looks beyond its borders for friendship and influence.
To those who follow Malaysian foreign policy, the decision to join the BRICS group of nations shouldn’t be a shock. However, it marks Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's latest decisive move in what has been a largely unprecedented level of activity in Malaysia’s foreign policy in the two years since he was elected. Since Anwar took office in 2022, he’s been far more active than previous prime ministers in developing Malaysia’s relationships with other countries. As his administration unfolds, so does his vision for Malaysia’s role on the world stage.
Malaysia’s efforts to participate more fully in the international community come at a time when many countries in the developing world are similarly hungry to capitalize on their growing wealth and developing state capacity to pursue their interests internationally and take a greater role in the world’s happenings. Nowhere is this growing enthusiasm more apparent than in the recent rush to join organizations like BRICS, which has grown from its founding members of Brazil, Russia, India, and China in 2006, as well as South Africa, which joined in 2010, to now include 11 members in 2024.
What is BRICS?
BRICS could be considered the next iteration of the non-aligned movement that gained broad adherence among recently decolonized countries during the Cold War. Membership represents a forum for countries on the road to development to discuss issues, support each other, and balance against the West. To many, BRICS is seen as an alternative to organizations dominated by wealthy countries. The forum and development assistance BRICS provides gives member states alternatives to organizations such as the World Bank, which provides money but ultimately comes with strings attached.
Right or wrong, the perception in much of the developed world is that organizations such as the World Bank and IMF preliminarily serve the interests of developed countries and represent foundational aspects of a neocolonial structure those countries deploy against the global south to maintain an extractive economic relationship that does not compete with the economies of the developed world. Based on this kind of adversarial perspective, the successful industrialization of countries like China is seen as a win against the Western imperial machine.
Assessing this narrative is more complex than folks on either side are generally keen to acknowledge. There are absolutely predatory aspects of the global economy that disproportionately impact poorer countries. Many of those dynamics were set up by European empires in the colonial age or designed in the early years of American hegemony in the 20th century. It also must be acknowledged that much of the development advice handed out in the 20th century was just bad. From import substitution to shock therapy, much of the advice and assistance offered to developing countries over the years has been misguided, ideologically motivated, or based on faulty economic theory. Whether you attribute the failures of Western-led development aid to incompetence or malice, the fact remains that developing nations are not always well served by these institutions.
While Western development aid failures are plentiful, pointing to them also serves narratives convenient to some leaders in the global south. The process of industrialization is a fraught, uncertain, and often violent experience for countries. Failures due to leadership, poor governance, and corruption are arguably more the norm than the exception. Pointing to external failures provides a means for those leaders to deflect blame away from their performance.
This debate also underscores the discussion in Malaysia and elsewhere in the region around ‘Asian values.’ Politicians argue that countries in East Asia come from different cultural roots than Western democracies and thus should reflect different political values within their approach to governance. While some variance in approach and desired outcomes between various countries with different cultural, history, and present-day challenges makes sense, the ‘Asian values’ debate also provides a convenient narrative for sly politicians to support their political legitimacy over the needs or desires of their population.
Lastly, I would expect the adversarial nature of the discussion around development aid to see an increase in the coming years driven by the increasing polarization of the international system. It’s not fair for developing countries to frame their development exclusively in the context of geostrategic interests, as was frequently the case in the Cold War. However, when the world’s two leading revisionist powers, Russia and China, are also two of the founding members of BRICS, asking to what extent the group plays into their broader confrontation with the existing international system should be a fair question.
However, while China and Russia doubtlessly see geopolitical value in reducing the monopoly power Western aid and development institutions have enjoyed since the mid-20th century, it’s laughable to consider BRICS some sort of emerging power block. Its members possess wildly diverse interests, some of which are at loggerheads with one another. Notably, India and China remain in a frosty high-altitude standoff along their border, where both sides sustain casualties in large-scale melees that take place along the actual line of control. Likewise, although China and Russia seem cozy in their ‘no limits partnership,’ they’re possibly Eurasia’s greatest frenemies with a history of feud and friendship dating back to when their respective empires first drew a line across the steppe.
Instead of a power block, BRICS offers its members an opportunity to build community and engage with one another on issues pertinent to its members. Because of the diversity of its member states, many analysts are skeptical of the capacity of BRICS to accomplish much as a group. However, it may provide a venue for smaller collections of members to pursue more specific interests. In this way, as membership grows, it could become more of a forum for mutual cooperation like the G7 rather than a body for collective action such as the UN. This may well be the value Malaysia sees in joining the organization.
How the move sits within Malaysia’s larger foreign policy framework
Under Anwar, Malaysia seems to be pursuing a three-legged approach to a broad and multilateral foreign policy. Its first two legs are active participation in the two communities it sees itself as part of: Southeast Asia, comprised of the ASEAN member nations, and the Muslim world, centered on the Middle East. The third leg of its strategy focuses on avoiding entanglement in the Sino-American rivalry and preserving its freedom of navigation between the two power blocks.
While other members of ASEAN are contemplating joining BRICS, Malaysia is the only member of both clubs at the moment. However, this year, a slew of Middle Eastern countries are joining, including Egypt, Iran, and the UAE. In addition to these confirmed new members, many additional countries from the region have also expressed interest in joining. While BRICS is not intended to be a forum specific to the Middle East, it may well be that for Malaysia, it provides an existing forum through which members of the region can be engaged.
Ultimately, the focus on multi-polarity in the international system that is being pushed by Anwar, among many others in developing nations, is more practical than ideological. As countries grow and become wealthy, invariably, their interests expand beyond their borders to focus their attention on cultural, economic, and security issues regionally and around the world. As a country nearly as wealthy as China on a per-capita basis, Malaysia is stretching its legs and seeking to build access to the opportunities that greater wealth naturally presents.
Don't see the point of it personally. As Asian countries develop they will be less and less dependent on the World Bank and the IMF. Currently most of the IMF money goes to saving basket case countries like Pakistan, Argentina, Egypt and Sri Lanka. You don't want that as a responsibility anyway. The most you'll see is ADB expanding into Africa which is of questionable benefit given most of them have a record of corruption, low or unstable growth and debt defaults.