Is Saudi Arabia a Brics member or not? A curious case of invitation, acceptance and a delay

As two dozen world leaders, including India’s Narendra Modi and China’s Xi Jinping, converge in Russia’s Kazan for Brics Summit 2024, the curious case of Saudi Arabia is in focus again.

The original Brics members —Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa— approved the joining of Saudi Arabia and four other nations at the Brics Summit 2023 in South Africa. The Saudi membership was set to start in February 2024 but the monarchy said at the last minute that it is not yet joining the group.

In February, a Saudi official source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia was still considering an invitation to become a member of the Brics.

“Saudi Arabia has not yet responded to the invitation to join BRICS. It is still under consideration,” the Saudi official source said in a statement to Reuters.

Earlier that month, in the wake of tensions between the United States and Russia-China combine, Saudi economy minister Faisal Alibrahim was quoted as sayin that the kingdom was still looking into the matter and had not yet joined the group. The same was reiterated later that month by South Africa’s envoy to Russia.

“Saudi Arabia is still going through its own processes. One, as a nation state. Two, together with the BRICS shepherds. Saudi Arabia is not yet, has not yet endorsed. We will see it as we move towards [the summit in] Kazan. As South Africa, we are ready,” said envoy Mzuvukile Geoff Maqetuka to Russian state media.

As Brics is seen as a rival to groups like G-7 and part of the Russia-China combine’s efforts to prop a new world order along with fellow authoritarian regimes of Iran and North Korea, some nations have expressed uneasiness about the grouping. Argentina, whose joining was also approved at the South Africa summit, has already withdrawn the nation’s bid to join the group.

Argentina’s President Javier Melei snubbed the Brics by saying that he would not “ally with communists”.

As suspense over Saudi Arabia’s membership’s status continues, there has been speculation that the kingdom has delayed formally entering group over reservations about the group’s character.

As Saudi Arabia remains a key US ally, it appears to be uncertain about ramping up engagement with principal US and Western adversaries Russia and China — that too at a time when Russia and China are closer than ever. In recent days, Russia and China along with Iran and North Korea have formed a bloc to undermine the West and prop a new world order.

Even though Russia or China do not formally label Brics a part of their anti-West bloc or their agenda to undermine the West, their engagements with Brics and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are seen as the broad agenda of undermining the West. However, the presence of countries with friendly ties to the West, such as India and United Arab Emirates (UAE), in these blocs function as a counterweight to attempts to turn these blocs into instruments of an anti-West agenda.

India has made it quite clear that, under its policy of multi-alignment to seek a multilateral world, India sees Brics and SCO as non-Western organisations to make the world order more democratic and does not see these groups as anti-Western to tilt the world order into China’s or Russia’s orbit.