Day: August 23, 2023

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The Fate of the BRICS Depends on Xi and Modi

Forget about everything that you've heard about this week's BRICS summit in Johannesburg because none of it matters. The fact that Putin didn't go in person seems important, right? No, not really. What about the idea of a dollar-killing BRICS currency? ...

Xi Mysteriously Failed to Show Up at a BRICS Event, Sparking Wild Speculation Over What Happened

The opening day of the BRICS summit in South Africa began as expected on Tuesday with a flurry of high-profile arrivals in Johannesburg followed by a bilateral meeting between South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. The two ...

Even Xi’s Spokesperson Didn’t Seem to Know What Happened

President Xi's unexplained absence from the BRICS Business Forum on Tuesday also seemingly caught the Foreign Ministry's top spokesperson off guard as well. Hua Chunying published a post on X following the event, erroneously claiming that "Xi Jinping delivered an addressed ...

Relations Between China and South Africa Have Entered a “Golden Era,” Says Xi

Chinese President Xi Jinping began his visit to South Africa on Tuesday with a round of bilateral diplomacy with his host Cyril Ramaphosa. The two leaders met for talks in the capital Pretoria where Xi declared that relations between the two ...

Key Policy Differences Emerge on Day 1 of BRICS Summit

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pushed back against the suggestion that the BRICS group should become an ideological opponent against the West. "We do not want to be a counterpoint to the G7, G20 or the United States," Brazil's Lula 

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Plugging into African Agency

After several years of declining funding, the African end of the Belt and Road Initiative seems to be roaring back. The newest Griffith University/Green Development Finance Center data on the Belt and Road Initiative shows that engagement with Africa jumped by 395%, while a few big projects boosted engagement in Nigeria alone more than twelvefold.

These shifts indicate a window of opportunity for African electrification. 60% of Africans still lack ...

New Development Bank Moves Forward With Local Currency Bonds in Bid to Reduce Dependence on the U.S. Dollar

The Shanghai-based New Development Bank, aka the BRICS Bank, said it is proceeding with plans to issue bonds and lend more money in local currencies as part of a larger effort to reduce reliance on the dollar. “We expect to lend ...