China and BRICS Project: General Reflections

Abstract

The BRICS are an exogenous invention that is institutionalized under the convenience of a geopolitical market strategy, which are, to a greater or a lesser degree, favored each of the five countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) that make up the BRICS today. As such, today it is a political group, lacking deep roots, whose future will be conditioned by the dividends that it can yield in the coming years as a result of its political, economic, and social correlations and divergences. This paper argues that the rise of China and the BRICS countries occurs just in the last decades of the 20th century and in the first years of the 21st century, and its result cannot be separated from the lines of transformation and crisis that have characterized this time period. Equally, given the parallelism that is drawn with the economic phenomena presented at the beginning of the past century, its review in the framework of these antecedents is obligatory.

Keywords:

• Brazil
• Russia
• India
• China
• South Africa

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arturo Oropeza García

Dr. Oropeza is a researcher and professor at the Institute for Judicial Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He is a specialist in topics of International Commerce, Integration, Latin America, China and the BRICS. He is an authorized foreign arbitrator (for Brasil) in alternative dispute resolution methods at MERCOSUR. He has lectured at various academic institutions of Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. He has been a keynote speaker at the different forums and symposiums of several international organizations, such as the Organization of American States, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Latin American Integration Association. Dr. Oropeza is author and coordinator of several books concerning Latin America, International Commerce and Law, Commercial Law, Economic Integration, BRICS and China. He is also a columnist and has been published in a variety of newspapers, academic journals and magazines of Mexico and Latin America.