Six Asian Members Quietly Reshape BRICS Agenda — SkimNews
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- Six Asian members — China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — make up ~83% of BRICS' GDP by PPP, rising to 90% when transcontinental Russia is included, with China alone supplying 58%.
- China and India together represent 71% of the bloc's population and 74% of its GDP, giving BRICS roughly 40% of global GDP and nearly half of humanity.
- The UAE exported about 3.2 million barrels a day of crude in 2025, with 99% bound for Asia and Oceania, while China imported a record 11.6 million barrels a day — tying Gulf producers' fortunes tightly to Asian demand.
- India's 2026 BRICS chairmanship, themed "Building Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability," is putting energy security, technology, development and global-governance reform at the center of the agenda.
- Indonesia's entry has pulled Southeast Asia into BRICS' institutional core, adding critical-mineral supply chains, maritime routes and food security to the bloc's scope.
- De-dollarization has cooled into "financial redundancy" — China and India have expanded local-currency trade, Gulf states are diversifying reserves, and Russia has built alternative payment channels since Western sanctions, though none aim to replace the dollar overnight.
- West Asian members (Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE) have redrawn the bloc's security frame around energy interdependence, terrorism, maritime chokepoints and supply-chain disruption rather than traditional war-and-peace concerns.
Why it matters: With six of 11 BRICS members Asian and 83% of GDP by PPP concentrated in them, the bloc's priorities are increasingly anchored in Asian energy flows, connectivity and developmental delivery — anchored further by India's 2026 chairmanship — meaning Washington's default 'China-Russia-versus-the-West' lens increasingly misreads where the grouping is actually heading.
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