BRICS ‘wants bipolar world’

The plan by the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics) forum to introduce their own currency is meant to realise the reason for the Brics formation – to achieve a bipolar world and counter the dominance of the US dollar in world trade and to undermine the US economic hegemony, say experts.

BRIC ambitions to have its own currency

Both political analysts Dr Jan Venter from North West University Potchefstroom Campus and Prof Ntsikelelo Breakfast, acting head the department of history and political studies at Nelson Mandela University said it was not surprising that Brics was contemplating having its own currency.

They attributed this to an attempt by the bloc to replace the US dollar as a dominant currency in the world economy.

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But Venter and Breakfast concurred that the wish for a common currency by Brics was unlikely to happen any time soon.

Whose going to bankroll the gold for BRICS currency?

“They want to establish Brics as an oppositional bloc against the West, but it will be difficult. Who is going to provide the gold to boost the currency or bankroll it?

That currency may be a wishful thinking at the moment,” Venter said. Breakfast said, “Brics was meant to create a bipolar world order so that no single bloc must entrench its hegemony over the other.

“The idea of a currency for Brics will be beneficial to the Global South but the real competition by the West is against China and Russia, not us as South Africa, because we were co-opted into the Brics strategically as a getaway into Africa,”

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Breakfast said. It was Russia and China that were a threat to the US hegemony in the world. “It is possible that the Brics manoeuvre could change the world economic order but it won’t happen overnight. The West especially the US was deeply entrenched as a domineering force in the world economic order, Breakfast said.

“It will take a long time for this to change. The situation was long designed to favour the US.” Venter said a new cold war would soon ensue and the world was headed towards being bipolar again. He predicted a possible military alliance involving Russia, China, India, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and even North Korea as a counterweight against the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato).

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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