Trade Remedies: China in the BRICS

Abstract

Over the past decade, an alliance of the most powerful emerging economies, the acronym so-called "BRICS," has drawn dramatic attention in the world market. This is because this new group of countries represents a significant share of the global GDP and a large portion of international trade, which is expected to surpass those developed countries, such as the United States and the European Union, in the coming years. Although the BRICS mechanism has started to work, the economies within the mechanism are not deeply integrated with each other. Several factors may contribute to this failure. For example, further commitments towards greater liberalization within sectors of goods and services have not been made amongst the group. Moreover, on the other hand, frequent use of trade remedy measures against exports from other economies amongst the group demonstrates that the current framework of the BRICS mechanism is much like a platform for powerful emerging economies to seek the political discourse of power in the world rather than a real alliance for trade.