{
  "type": "article",
  "title": "Strip Away China and the Myth of BRICS Economic Dominance Rapidly Unravels",
  "summary": "An analysis by economist Surjit Bhalla demonstrates that China accounts for nearly all of the BRICS bloc's recent economic gains, leaving other member nations lagging.",
  "content": "New Delhi's Bharat Mandapam recently hosted a two-day gathering of roughly 28 leaders representing 11 BRICS countries, presenting a showcase of contemporary architecture, cultural heritage, and regional diplomacy. The primary agenda centered on expanding bilateral trade, dismantling commercial barriers, and reinforcing cross-border economic ties. Throughout global summits, the group is routinely lauded for holding a combined 40% of worldwide gross domestic product and roughly 50% of the planetary population. Yet, a closer examination of the underlying statistical records reveals that once China is removed from the ledger, the bloc's narrative of collective economic ascendance tells a radically different story.\n\nGlobal Income Trends and the Chinese Expansion\nSurjit Bhalla, who previously served as an executive director at the International Monetary Fund representing India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka, compiled detailed economic metrics tracing the trajectory of member nations. According to his calculations, the share of global income commanded by BRICS expanded from 21.9% in 2011 to 28.9% by 2025. While this expansion forms the numerical backbone of virtually every diplomatic communique released by the bloc, dissecting the data by individual nation paints an entirely separate picture of progress.\n\nWhen China is excluded from the calculation, the growth curve turns decisively negative rather than positive. The remaining ten member states saw their collective portion of world income slide from 11.9% in 2011 down to 11.5% in 2025, marking an outright contraction of 0.4 percentage points. In stark contrast, China alone expanded its share from 10% to 17.4% over the exact same timeframe. This divergence means that China single-handedly generated 72% of the total income growth achieved across the entire BRICS grouping over the past twelve years. Bhalla emphasized that while the alliance as a whole has expanded on paper, removing one single nation exposes the lack of growth across the rest.\n\nDemographic Distribution and Deepening Internal Disparities\nThe demographic footprint of the coalition presents an equally static portrait. In 2011, BRICS members accounted for 50.9% of all people on the planet, a figure that shifted marginally to 50.5% by 2025. Surjit Bhalla pointed out that the alliance holds half of the human population yet commands under three-tenths of aggregate global income, with no meaningful economic convergence happening outside of Beijing. He also noted that the bloc's overall income share peaked at 29.8% in 2023, subsequently contracting in each of the following two years.\n\nInternally, the economic weight has shifted heavily toward a single powerhouse. China generated 45.6% of total BRICS income back in 2011, but that figure has now surged to 60.2%, granting it commanding structural dominance over the coalition. Among the five traditional core members, income concentration rose from 54.1% in 2011 to 68.9%. Simultaneously, China's proportion of the total BRICS population actually retreated from 38.4% down to 35.7% over the previous fifteen years.\n\nStagnation in Global Merchandise Trade\nInternational commerce numbers reflect a similar structural weakness once external factors are isolated. When excluding China, the pace of trade expansion among the other ten members turned negative over the twelve-year window. Furthermore, stripping away both China and the four prominent oil producers leaves trade growth entirely flat. Worldwide, the BRICS proportion of global merchandise exports climbed from 23% in 2011 to 25% by 2023. However, taking China out causes that figure to sink from 12.4% to 10.1%. In concrete terms, China accounted for 94% of the entire net gain in goods exports produced by the bloc across those twelve years.\n\nThe group's crude energy suppliers comprise Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The dollar-denominated export figures for these nations are heavily tied to crude benchmark pricing, which has experienced notable softness. These four energy exporters held 7.3% of total global exports in 2011, which dropped down to 5% by 2015 and remained subdued through 2023.\n\nSurjit Bhalla noted that stripping out China alongside the four oil exporters leaves the remaining six members, Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia, accounting for exactly 5.1% of global goods exports in 2011 and an identical 5.1% in 2023. Over twelve full years, there was no movement whatsoever. Bhalla described this as the cleanest and most damning metric in the dataset, demonstrating that the stagnation is neither an artifact of fluctuating oil prices nor a byproduct of Chinese accounting, but simply an absence of real commercial progress.\n\nPer Capita Divergence Among Member States\nA granular look at living standards reveals profound gaps across the membership. Ethiopia and China nearly tripled their dollar-denominated income figures over the period, India successfully doubled its output, and Indonesia posted respectable metrics. Conversely, nations such as Brazil, South Africa, and Iran found themselves poorer in dollar terms in 2025 than they had been in 2011.\n\nWhen assessing income per citizen globally, Brazil sits at rank 112, South Africa holds rank 118, and Iran lags at rank 123. All three economies experienced negative per capita income growth across the 2011 to 2025 window, with Brazil dropping by -0.4%, South Africa contracting by -1.4%, and Iran falling by -2.6%. The United Arab Emirates registered at rank 101, managing modest per capita income growth of just 0.9%.\n\nWhile observers often attribute these sluggish outcomes to the 2014 to 2016 crude downturn or the subsequent pandemic disruptions, Bhalla explained that splitting the period at 2019 yields minimal shift in relative standing. Although Brazil and Iran saw modest second-half rebounds, and Russia accelerated dramatically from 0.1% annual growth before 2019 to 6.1% thereafter due to wartime spending and energy shifts, South Africa remained underwater across both halves at -1.8% and -0.8%, keeping structural rankings intact.\n\nGlobal Comparisons and India's Commercial Performance\nPlacing BRICS members alongside non-member countries offers clear context regarding broader global economic performance. Looking at 125 nations worldwide with populations exceeding three million and available comparative data, the median BRICS economy ranks 66th. The median economic growth rate across BRICS stands at 2.7% annually, which matches the exact median recorded by the rest of the world. Consequently, the coalition operates at an ordinary global baseline, with only five of its eleven constituents exceeding the worldwide median.\n\nThe economies occupying the top positions globally include Bangladesh at rank one with an 8.8% annual expansion rate, followed by Vietnam at third and Cambodia at fifth. Other high performers outside the bloc include Armenia, Nepal, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, Costa Rica, and Kenya. In fact, 23 of the 25 fastest-growing global economies over the past fifteen years do not belong to BRICS. Bhalla observed that these nations succeeded not through high-profile summits, but by expanding market access, attracting productive capital investments, and pursuing domestic structural reforms.\n\nAmong the original founding group, India emerged as the second-highest performer after China, ranking 26th globally with an annual growth rate of 5.2%. The country's per capita income expanded from 2.5% to 3.5%, moving its standing from 13.4% of the global average up to 18.7%.\n\nEven so, Bhalla noted that this momentum leaves critical ground uncovered, particularly in physical commerce. India's share of international goods exports moved from 1.71% in 2011 to 1.88% in 2023, representing an increment of just seventeen hundredths of a percentage point over twelve years. During that identical timeframe, Vietnam saw its global export share leap from 0.52% to 1.50%. Vietnam expanded its merchandise export volume from $93 billion to $345 billion, rapidly closing the gap with India, which grew from $307 billion to $432 billion. Bhalla observed that an economy possessing just a fifteenth of India's population came within striking distance while multilateral delegates spent their time attending summits regarding global institutional reform.\n\nWhat this means for you\nThis economic assessment indicates that the bloc's diplomatic prestige has not translated into proportional domestic trade expansion or broad-based income growth.\n\n• Across India: Sluggish gains in overall merchandise export share directly affect domestic manufacturing jobs and foreign exchange momentum. Indian exporters face fierce competition from nations like Vietnam that have scaled their trade access much faster without relying on international forums.\n• For Global Investors: The wide economic divergence among member countries means treating the alliance as a unified emerging market asset class is fundamentally flawed. Capital allocation requires evaluating individual domestic policy performance rather than diplomatic communiques.\n• For Ordinary Citizens: Lagging per capita income growth in several member nations limits household purchasing power and living standard improvements. Sustained wage gains require genuine domestic industrial competitiveness rather than symbolic multilateral summits.\n• For Policymakers: Institutional energy spent negotiating diplomatic communiques delivers diminishing returns compared to targeted trade liberalisation and domestic structural deregulation. Commercial expansion depends on infrastructure, tax efficiency, and market access rather than bloc expansion.\n\nWhy this happened\nThe sharp disparity within BRICS emerged because China aggressively expanded its industrial manufacturing and export base over the last fifteen years, while most other member nations struggled with structural bottlenecks and volatile commodity reliance.\n\n• China's Industrial Dominance: Beijing captured 72% of the coalition's total income growth and 94% of its net goods export expansion over twelve years. This overwhelming concentration masked economic stagnation and income contractions across the other member economies.\n• Energy and Commodity Vulnerability: Key oil exporters including Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates saw dollar earnings constrained by softening crude benchmarks. Their combined share of global goods exports slid from 7.3% in 2011 to 5% by 2015, dampening non-China aggregate numbers.\n• Lack of Decisive Domestic Reforms: Economies like Brazil, South Africa, and Iran experienced negative per capita growth due to persistent domestic friction and inadequate trade liberalisation. In contrast, agile non-members like Vietnam and Bangladesh prioritized foreign investment and global trade integration to outpace the bloc.\n\nQuestions & Answers\n\n1. How much of the total BRICS income growth belongs to China according to Surjit Bhalla?\nChina alone accounted for 72% of the entire increase in BRICS income over the twelve-year period.\n\n2. What happened to the global income share of the other ten BRICS nations excluding China?\nTheir combined share of world income declined from 11.9% in 2011 to 11.5% in 2025, marking a 0.4 percentage point drop.\n\n3. Which member nations experienced negative per capita income growth over the analyzed period?\nBrazil recorded -0.4%, South Africa registered -1.4%, and Iran saw a contraction of -2.6% in per capita income.\n\n4. How did India's goods export performance compare to Vietnam's over the same twelve years?\nIndia expanded its goods exports from $307 billion to $432 billion, while Vietnam grew rapidly from $93 billion to $345 billion.",
  "url": "https://trendkia.com/en/money/china-ko-hatakara-dekhen-to-brics-ki-arthika-takata-ka-sacha-bilkula-ulta-najara-ata-hai-33603",
  "category": "Money",
  "publishedAt": "2026-09-19",
  "tags": [
    "BRICS Summit",
    "China Economy",
    "Surjit Bhalla",
    "Global Trade",
    "Indian Economy",
    "Export Growth"
  ],
  "language": "en",
  "site": "TrendKia"
}