After years of calls from the US and its allies for China to play a more “responsible” role in global affairs, Beijing is starting to comply, although not quite in the way they had hoped or expected.
The Brics group of big emerging nations – comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and, for the first time this year, South Africa – is becoming a China-dominated forum in which Beijing can push its evolving global agenda without the overbearing presence of the US.
As the third annual Brics leaders’ meeting wrapped up in the swampy, half-built resort town of Sanya, on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, it was clear that Beijing was firmly in charge.