RIO DE JANEIRO, February 1. /TASS/. Brazil has no intention of turning BRICS, which also includes Russia, India, China and South Africa, into a bloc which opposes the West, Boris Zabolotsky, an associate professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, an expert of the Valdai Discussion Club and a Brazilian political scientist, said in a conversation with TASS on Wednesday.
"Brazil has no interest in transforming BRICS into an anti-hegemonic, or if you prefer, into an anti-Western bloc," he said, explaining that this was primarily due to "the country’s considerable dependence on the West."
"This is typical throughout South America where enough US influence is felt," Zabolotsky added.
In this regard, Brazil’s activity within BRICS pursues mostly pragmatic goals and is aimed at benefiting as much as possible from fruitful collaboration with both BRICS nations and traditional Western partners. As an example, Zabolotsky referred to the fact that Brazil had managed to enlist the support of China and Russia to be nominated for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council, while maintaining a close dialogue with Western countries.
According to the political scientist, after socialist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office in Brazil, the West "will be increasing pressure on his government, trying to drag the country into its sphere of influence."
Zabolotsky believes that the side towards which "the pendulum of Brazilian diplomacy will swing" will partly depend on what investment proposals will be offered to Brasilia by both camps - the West and the so-called Global South.
"For instance, Russia and China do not urge [it] to amend tax and social policies as conditions for their investments," he clarified.
As Zabolotsky underscores, Lula da Silva is well aware how attitudes to this economic expansion differ in developing and highly-industrialized countries, as he does not have enough confidence in the latter ones.
"In his interview from a prison cell (Lula de Silva was imprisoned from April 2018 to November 2019 after a sentence for corruption - TASS), he reiterated that the [anti-corruption Operation] Car Wash, the ousting of President Dilma [Rousseff] and his imprisonment were orchestrated by the US Department of State in order to weaken major Brazilian industrial holdings, thus empowering the US and European companies which seek to participate in infrastructure projects across Latin America. Lula knows that the West is no stranger to dirty practices when implementing its strategies," the expert explained.
In this light, the expert believes, Brazil’s active participation in BRICS meets the interests not only of the county itself, but also of the current socialist government of South America’s largest country.