China, Russia and other emerging economies turn to main summit agenda in South Africa

GERALD IMRAY

Leaders of some of the developing world’s most important economies turned Wednesday to the main business of their summit in South Africa, a day after a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the gathering an anti-Western tinge that officials had been hoping to avoid.

The BRICS group of emerging economies made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are debating whether to expand their bloc and allow in new members more than a decade after it came into existence.

More than 20 countries have formally applied to join the group, officials say, with Saudi Arabia one of the most significant.

Four of the bloc’s leaders are in Johannesburg for the group’s first in-person meeting since the COVID-19 pandemic, including Chinese President Xi Jinping. Putin is not attending after an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for him over the war in Ukraine complicated his travel