Opinion | The G7 Versus The BRICS: Who Wins?

The G7 is a sunset organisation. BRICS is a sunrise organisation.

These claims are undeniable. Yet, the globally dominant Western media refuse to accept these new realities. Instead, they continue to report on G7 meetings with great rapture, while pouring scorn on BRICS meetings, like the recent one which took place in Kazan, Russia from October 22 to October 24, 2024.

So, why is the G7 a sunset organisation? First, its share of global GDP is declining. In 1990, when the Cold War was ending (and when the West was drowning in great self-congratulatory triumphalism), the G7 share of the global GDP was 66%. BRICS hadn't been formed yet. Yet, its share of global GDP was abysmally small at around 6%. Today, the G7 share has declined to 45% while the BRICS share has climbed to 24%. Equally importantly, in PPP terms, the BRICS share of 34 percent is larger than that of G7's share of 29 percent. The trend lines are clear. The G7 is diminishing in size. BRICS is growing.

Second, the power structure within the G7 has shifted dramatically. When the G7 was founded in the late 1970s, the seven members (the US, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy, and Canada) plus the European Union (EU) met as equals. In the 1980s, leaders like Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Schmidt considered themselves as peers to the American president. Today, G7 meetings look like meetings of Snow White and the seven dwarves (including the EU). The US share of the combined G7 GDP has gone up dramatically from 46% in 2000 to 59% this year. Functionally, the other G7 members have become satellite states of the US, having lost most of their strategic autonomy.

By contrast, even though China's share of the combined founding members' GDP is equally dominant at 68% in 2024, none of the other members of BRICS are in any way satellite states of China. Instead, they are fiercely independent. They are not subservient to China in any way. This may also explain why so many countries are aspiring to join BRICS.

In January 2024, BRICS inducted Egypt, UAE, Ethiopia and Iran as new members. In October 2024, during the latest BRICS summit in Kazan, 13 partner countries were also inducted: Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. BRICS is set to continue to expand further: 8 other countries have applied formally for membership. Over 40 countries have reportedly expressed interest to join BRICS. What makes the BRICS membership so attractive to the Global South countries? Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia's prime minister said, "We are considering BRICS because we believe that the cooperation of Southern countries within the Global South is highly beneficial."

There is a small fact of history that G7 members should reflect on. In the 2000s, many BRICS leaders like PM Manmohan Singh, President Hu Jintao, President Lula, and President Thabo Mbeki were invited to attend G7 meetings as "guests". Yet, instead of treating these BRICS leaders as peers who deserved equal respect, the G7 leaders treated them as supplicants and kept them waiting outside as the G7 deliberated amongst themselves. Even a nice man like Manmohan Singh felt offended by this and said, "We were not active participants in the G8 processes. In fact, the G8 communiqué was issued even before our meeting and we did make the point that in future, if similar meetings have to take place, then we should get a chance to discuss issues of our concern before the G8 meeting so that our point of view can be reflected in the thought processes of the G8. And I said we have come here not as petitioners, but as partners in an equitable, just and fair management of the global comity of nations which we accept as the reality in the globalised world."

The third reason why G7 has lost its way is that it has become geopolitically incompetent. The two most painful wars of recent times are the Ukraine and the Gaza wars. There's no question that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is illegal. And there's no question that Israel has a right to defend itself from the heinous attack by Hamas on innocent Israeli civilians. Yet future historians will record that both wars could have been prevented if the G7 had shown geopolitical competence.

It's striking that two of America's greatest strategic thinkers of the 20th century, George Kennan and Henry Kissinger, warned that Russia could react adversely to NATO expansion. Indeed, as far back as 1998, George Kennan told Tom Friedman of the New York Times, "I think it is the beginning of a new Cold War. I think the Russians will react quite adversely, and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. (NATO expansion) was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs... Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime." Kennan's warning was stark and clear. The Europeans ignored his advice. Now they are paying the price for doing so.

Nothing reflects the global isolation of the G7 (and its fellow European partners) more than the fact that 87 percent of the world's population have not followed the West in imposing sanctions on Russia. Many European leaders have loudly claimed that they have "isolated" Russia. The reality is that when it comes to G7 sanctions on Russia, the G7 has effectively isolated themselves from the global mainstream. Clearly, this calls for deeper self-reflection by G7 leaders.

Even before the re-election of Donald Trump in November 2024, the G7 was losing its way in a new multipolar and multi-civilisational world order. The election of Donald Trump is clearly going to exacerbate the geopolitical challenges faced by the other G7 members, even though, like the proverbial ostriches, they are digging their heads into the sand and pretending that nothing has changed.

Donald Trump is an honest man. He has clearly said that his goal is to "Make America Great Again" (MAGA). His goal isn't to make the G7 or the West great again. He is likely to impose tariffs not just on competitors like China. He could also impose tariffs on friends and allies like Canada and Mexico, the EU member states, Japan and South Korea. Donald Trump has complained that America's allies have been liabilities, not assets. For example, he said ". . . for years, we were paying almost all of NATO. We were being ripped off by European nations both on trade and on NATO."

In short, if the other members of the G7 are intellectually honest with themselves, they should admit to themselves that they need to step back and reflect on the real purpose and raison d'etre of the G7. Does it really play a significant role other than providing photo opportunities for G7 leaders? If not, shouldn't the G7 reconsider new options? Wouldn't it make more sense for some EU countries to also consider joining BRICS? Right now, this is unthinkable. Soon it will become thinkable.

(The author is a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, NUS, and is the author of Living the Asian Century)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author