Tag: China

Rio 2025 BRICS Paves Way for Global South Leadership

Posted on By Musanjufu Benjamin Kavubu

Dear Editor, in July, Brazil hosted the 17th BRICS summit on the theme “Strengthening Global South Cooperation for More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance”, and if by any chance you followed main stream media especially from Western outlets the emphasis was put on the absence of the Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The West pushed this narrative to water down the 17 years of this summit. The BRICS is a group formed by eleven countries: Brasil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Iran. It serves as a political and diplomatic coordination forum for countries from the Global South and for coordination in the most diverse areas.

After the summit ended the former President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev said “BRICS is gaining authority. Trump announced that an additional 10% tariff would be imposed on any country that supports BRICS policy. So, we’re doing everything right!”. There was a myriad of development in Rio de Janeiro that are very important to the development of the global South and many based on the South-South framework. For starters on top of the already 11 member states at the moment going by the Kazan declaration  the Republic of Belarus, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Republic of Cuba, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Malaysia, the Kingdom of Thailand, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Republic of Uganda, and the Republic of Uzbekistan attended as BRICS partner countries. Which is a stage to attaining membership status.

Uganda’s delegation was led by the Vice President H.E Maj. (Rtd) Jessica Rose Epel Alupo. The only lady to lead a delegation to the summit from a sovereign country in attendance.

Since BRICS prides itself in political and diplomatic coordination, western media didn’t report about the strongest of emphasis put on multilateral reforms especially with actions that amplify the theme of the summit, for example when it comes to making sure Africa, the Caribbean and South America take a more central role in organizations like the World Bank, the World Trade organization (WTO) and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The BRICS recognize the legitimate aspirations of African countries, as reflected in the Ezulwini Consensus and Sirte Declaration that advocate for Africa to have two Permanent seats and 3 non permanent seats at the UNSC, they also stressed that the UNSC reforms are to lead to the amplified voice of the Global South. Recalling the 2022 Beijing and 2023 Johannesburg-II Leaders’ Declarations, China and Russia, as permanent members of the UNSC, reiterated their support to the aspirations of Brazil and India to play a greater role in the UN, including its Security Council.

On the issue of poverty and inequality the BRICS put forward the reform of the world Bank and the IMF so that the Bretton Woods system can address the most critical issues of the global South in a just and with more meaningful representation. The BRICS expressed support for the 2025 World Bank shareholding review that is co-chaired by Brazil that is aimed at enhancing legitimacy of the world bank group so that it’s in a better place to really take on modern challenges like creating jobs for a youthful population and dealing with the climate crisis.

Reforming the WTO was very central to the proceeding especially at a time when commercial diplomacy through Tarrif hikes and other trade restrictions is taking place. BRICS is also advocating for the admission of Iran and Ethiopian into WTO. BRICS are also not going to support sanctions that violate international law, a huge push back to the West’s misuse of the concept.

The BRICS forum reappointed Dilma Rousseff to the presidency of New Development Bank (NDB) an institution that is continuing to grow especially with the capacity to raise money that is used to facilitate projects in the global South. To ensure financial independence and resilience a number of measures amongst BRICS members and partners were put in place for example the BRICS New Investment Platform, the BRICS Interbank Cooperation Mechanism, the Rapid Information Security Channel, and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement that is specifically for use of local currencies while sidelining the US dollar. The measures also facilitate Cross border payments, encourage funding of projects through fast and cheap payments.

Later this year Brazil will host COP30, and climate was very key to issues discussed at the 17th BRICS summit, the forum agreed to approach the climate change issue through multilateralism for example by upholding the Paris agreement and putting in place a BRICS climate leadership agenda dedicated to the climate crisis the world faces. It was agreed that each country should play it’s part and honor it’s commitment to climate financing and that there should be local solutions that don’t encourage protectionism in the pretext to combating climate change.

Peace and security was also top of the agenda, for starters there was concern for ongoing conflict around the world, and discouragement for increased military spending that is becoming the trend world over.  The BRICS jointly condemned the USA’s military actions on Iran that were against the UN Charter. On the Ukraine situation there was acknowledgement of the different national positions and a peaceful way forward was advocated for, and appreciation of mediation efforts like the Africa initiative.

On the Israel-Palestine question the BRICS strongly condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza for example the blocking of entry of humanitarian aid and called for an unconditional Ceasefire and the release of hostage on both sides and expressed support for a two state solution.

BRICS was very conscious on human rights, women’s empowerment, the summit committed to advanced collaborative endeavors like the BRICS Network of Universities. Encouraged celebration of cultural heritage and the return of cultural items taken from the global South. There was a very intentional pronouncement on the question of AI and technological advancements.

BRICS is growing, evolving and expanding as it proves its ready to take part in shaping a multipolar world that is inclusive and beneficial for especially the global South.

The writer is a research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

Zero Tariffs: How China Quietly Rewriting Africa’s Trade Future

Posted on By Musanjufu Benjamin Kavubu

At a time when trade wars are raging across the world, something remarkable happened. China opened up its market to Africa fully, as it had promised during FOCAC 9 in September 2024. This write-up will have characteristics of great power contestation concerning the African continent, but it’s not a blind hip of praise for Beijing. It’s a fact that China has not in the past treated Africa with an imperial hand, unlike its counterparts in the West, especially Washington, that only deals with Africa on vertical level.

Present Trump 2.o has decided commercial diplomacy will shape his foreign policy, and Tariffs are at the forefront of his arsenal as the United States deals with the rest of the world especially Africa. Even when Washington established the famous African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in 2000 to give African economies duty free access, at the end of the day countries that didn’t obey US orders were kicked out. The orders are normally political conditions such as human rights records that are hypocritical, after all they set up their country after genocides against native Americans.

China’s policy to grant African countries duty free access was not an overnight decision, it has been decades in the making, based on pragmatic dialogue between the two sides. It all started back in the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Ministerial conference in Addis Ababa in the December of 2003 when zero Tariff were introduced on selected African exports to China from 30 countries, and by 2018 the number increased to 33.

In September of 2024 the 33 countries were formally granted zero tariff treatment to all their experts to China beyond the selected goods from the past, and this took effect in the following December. Through further dialogues most notably the most recent FOCAC followup ministerial meeting held in Changsha in June of 2025, it was announced that all goods from the 33 African countries, and an additional 20 that have diplomatic relations with Beijing would be eligible for 100% duty free access to the world’s second largest economy.

At the moment all African countries except Eswatini that recognizes Taiwan as a country, have a duty free access to the Chinese market. Eswatini’s diplomatic stance does not make sense because even the United States doesn’t recognize Taiwan in that capacity. As Africa was still figuring out the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) nothing is going to boost the continent’s main trade vehicle like the Chinese gesture for trade and corporation.

Today China has the second largest economy on the planet with a population of about 1.4 billion people, it has a middle class of over 400 million people, this middle class is still growing and it has the characteristics of other middle classes world over, it desires high quality products of all sorts. This opens several opportunities for the African continent, for example through AfCFTA, to meet Chinese demand for beauty products by African start ups in that sector across the continent will require collaboration, and coordinated efforts to make it into the Chinese market for starters. It’s going to take enhanced regional supply chains that will require regional hubs to facilitate the logistics before they hit the ports to head out for China.

For the youth on the African continent to make into sectors like fashion on the Chinese market, they have to scale up production jointly across the continent, improve economies of scale and export competitiveness are some of the areas that African women making designer clothes that meet the Chinese standards will have to take on from time to time to survive. Automatically to meet the Chinese demand African governments have to make sure there are policies in place to foster intra-Africa trade as industrial diversification will be vital.

On July 15th 2025 as Trump was proposing to impose 10%+ Tariffs on the global South, Beijing gave every African a chance to experience this remarkable natural trade evolution between China Africa Corporation, it’s not imperialistic, it’s coherent and inclusive. The question now, is how does each African from an individual level especially the educated youth benefit from having access to 400 million people with enough disposable income and consuming everything at the moment from goods like coffee, and shea butter, to services like art and music? Most African governments know exactly what they will be exporting to China, but it’s important that the individuals also position themselves to benefit from the duty free access.

To get an African product to the Chinese market there must be agents involved, its not a usual opportunity for Africa to be at the up stream of a supply chain as goods get exported to China. To meet the quality standard, more jobs will be created in agriculture, at rural industrial hubs, and in mining. Even in fashion their will be some form of machinery operations. To facilitate logistics, transport is an endless expanse. The best informed will take up the space of export consultancy. To penetrate the Chinese market, online platforms and E commerce are a must.

A few policies at state level must be put in place across the African continent under the watch of the African Union and it’s 2063 agenda the backbone of the AfCFTA, but also individuals like you and me must be ready to take up the opportunities that will be present to benefit from Africa’s zero Tariff access to the world’s largest population.

The author is a research fellow at the Centre for BRICS Studies, Uganda.