This book examines the second BRICS outreach process known as “BRICS plus”, inaugurated at the 2023 XV BRICS Summit in Johannesburg. The idea of BRICS plus was an initiative of China at the Xiamen summit in 2017, which had, at first, a timid consensus, exposing contradictions and conflicts of interest among BRICS members and between the BRICS and the West. The authors look at the innovative aspects of the new BRICS plus and how they might change the current geopolitical configuration, particularly in the post-pandemic world and in the context of the war in Ukraine. They focus on particular on the two enthusiastic supporters of BRICS plus “project”: China and Russia; and the three more conservative ones: India, Brazil and South Africa.
