Latest update April 5th, 2026 12:45 AM
Latest News
- Bankrupt, lack of experience and faced with mounting lawsuits – Lindsayca awarded multi-million U.S. contract in Guyana
- Crypto, Cartels, and Collusion: GI-TOC Exposes Guyana as the Lifeblood of Venezuela’s Gold Underworld
- Kidnapping accused killed in crash on Mandela Avenue
- Iran rejects Trump’s ‘helpless, stupid’ 48-hour ultimatum
- U.S. deportation case against ‘Melly Mel’ terminated
The Sanya Declaration
Apr 18, 2011 Editorial
In our last Friday’s editorial “BRICS Power”, we noted the entry of South Africa into the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) grouping at the third annual meeting in the Chinese city of Sanya. At the end of their deliberations, the new BRICS issued an extremely wide-ranging communiqué (“The Sanya Declaration”) that explicitly signals their intent to become a coherent player in the international scene. This is a seminal decision with significant implications for a small, developing nation like Guyana.
After the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the 1990’s and the US emerged as the last super power standing, there were concerns expressed about global stability in a unilateral world. The surfacing of new power centres such as China and India, riding on their double-digit GDP growths, was not necessarily comforting. If history was any guide, a multi-polar world – such as that of the early twentieth century, which produced two world wars – could be even more treacherous that our preceding bi-polar one dominated by the US and the USSR.
The serendipitous emergence of BRICS after the economic meltdown of the US economy in 2008 offered an alternative, and prospectively, a more positive scenario. An analytic category of fast growing economies was given operational reality on the invitation of the US president, seeking economic help.
Rather than jockeying and competing for second place (and ultimately to displace the US for the top spot) BRIC offered the large “emerging” economies an opportunity to cooperate and coordinate their policies. Initially driven as a subset of the request from the western nations but soon driven on their own initiative as they saw the commonalities of their own reality.
The most positive outcome of the BRICS initiative has to be the platform offered to China and India to deal not only with their economic rivalry but their military geopolitical one – having actually fought a war (albeit a very short one) in 1962 – as major Asian powers.
There is also, of course, the old Russia-China rivalry. The Sanya Declaration is noteworthy in the ambitious agenda outlined in thirty-two general positions adopted in addition to an “Action Plan” with fourteen elements, four “Areas of Cooperation” and five “New Proposals to Explore”.
While it is obvious that BRICS will inevitably be defining its interests vis a vis the US and its major allies (Europe and Japan) that remain the major economic and political powers in the world, the Sanya Declaration makes it clear that it is not directly challenging those powers at this time.
This was exemplified clearly by its statement on the ongoing NATO military action against Libya. Even as they affirmed, “we share the principle that the use of force should be avoided…(and) we maintain that the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of each nation should be respected.” They concluded, “We wish to continue our cooperation in the UN Security Council on Libya”: Russia, China, Brazil and India had abstained while South Africa had voted for the attacks.
On the whole, BRICS should be positive for the developing world especially in international relations since their positions should coincide broadly with the latter on a wide range of issues. For instance, while extending “full support to an early accession of Russia to the WTO”, they called for “a successful, comprehensive and balanced conclusion of the Doha Development Round, built on the progress already made and consistent with its development mandate.”
On the sustainable path incorporated by our LCD’S, the Declaration asserts, “We support the Cancun Agreements and are ready to make concerted efforts with the rest of the international community to bring a successful conclusion to the negotiations at the Durban Conference applying the mandate of the Bali Roadmap and in line with the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities. We commit ourselves to work towards a comprehensive, balanced and binding outcome to strengthen the implementation of the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol.”
We hope that BRICS will have the political will to follow through with their commitments expressed in the Sanya Declaration.
Discover more from Kaieteur News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.