BRICS membership may elevate Indonesia’s position in the forum of Global South, but contrast Indonesia’s non-alignment policy and national objectives to strengthen its battery ecosystem development.
In early 2025, Indonesia became a member of BRICS, an intergovernmental organization of ten countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Initiated by four founding countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – in 2009, and complemented by South Africa in 2010, BRICS (the name is derived from their initial letters) is a forum for the Global South.
With 10 member countries, including Indonesia, in 2025, BRICS consists of half the world’s population and 41% of the global economy. BRICS covers 33,76 % of the world’s income and produces key commodities for the world from food, energy, and minerals, such as grains, meat, palm oil, gas, oil, and nickel. Each BRICS members have their own interests in BRICS, which will be explained below. The question is whether these self-interests of BRICS members are suitable for Indonesia? Can BRICS support Indonesian interests, e.g in developing its mineral industry?
BRICS for multilateralism and Indonesia
BRICS is an alternative forum for non-Western countries, known as states in the Global South, to address the United Nations (UN)’s outdated structure to tackle multilateralism challenges.
First, the UN has always been dominated by five permanent members at the Security Council, or P5, whose members are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. One of the P5 members may veto an agreed resolution from the UN’s General Assembly, hampering decision-making and efficient functionality of the Council. Second, the composition of the P5 represents the configuration of 1945 and not the world dynamic today, as there is no representation from Africa and South America in the Security Council.
To provide an alternative considering the challenges associated with the UN, BRICS plans to establish and strengthen multilateralism by supporting the representation from the middle-income countries and political reform in the UN, along with an established financial system. BRICS seeks to use a different financial system to provide another international alternative, aside from the Western blocs.
BRICS plans to establish and strengthen multilateralism by supporting the representation from the middle-income countries and political reform in the UN, along with an established financial system.
Aiming not to follow the system of the US-sponsored World Bank or the European-sponsored International Monetary Fund (IMF), BRICS plans to establish the New Development Bank (NDB), which uses the currency agreed by users and is more accesible for middle-income countries when it comes to loans and investments. Also, it aims to not use the US dollar anymore, known as de-dollarization. Avoidance of the use of Western currencies, especially US Dollar is likely due to the policy of Russia and China.
However, each of the founding countries of BRICS has their own agenda. Brazil, India and South Africa are all interested in becoming the permanent members of the UN’s Security Council. As seen in the BRICS membership expansion 2023, the guiding principle of BRICS is to “strengthen multilateralism” and thus “reform the multilateral system”.
Here, BRICS still accepts the UN and its Charter as “an indispensable cornerstone of multilateralism and international law”. However, the emerging membership at the UN from developing countries has not been acknowledged and thus, BRICS wants to reform the UN by adding new members to the UN Security Council. Consequently, according to this membership expansion procedure, the new member is required to support Brazil, India and South Africa to bid to the UN’s Security Council. Indonesia, thus, as a new member is expected to support this development.
BRICS still accepts the UN and its Charter as “an indispensable cornerstone of multilateralism and international law”. However, the emerging membership at the UN from developing countries has not been acknowledged and thus, BRICS wants to reform the UN by adding new members to the UN Security Council.
It is apparent for BRICS that UN is an important organization, but it needs to be reformed. Indeed, reforming the UN has been discussed even in the 1960s by the first Indonesian president, Sukarno, which led to Indonesia withdrew from the UN membership in 1965 (Indonesia re-joined the UN when the regime changed).
Recently, in the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York on 25 September 2024, the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb initiated a concrete step to reform the UN, by adding the permanent members for the UN’s Security Council: two members from Asia, two from Africa and one from Latin America so the total number will be 10 permanent memberships, around 5% of the UN members. Is it acceptable for Indonesia if China and India would represent Asia?
Meanwhile, China uses soft power and diplomacy, such as through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to lead the world’s energy transformation. It controls the development process, especially in Africa, even initiated the Global Development Initiatives at the UN (see e.g UN document A/76/345) and is likely to lead the agenda of the UN development pillar.
In turn, Russia would like to show the Western world that isolation and sanctions from the West due to its attack to Ukraine are ineffective. Russia wants to prove that it has “allies” in BRICS. Arguably, Russia is still one the world’s largest oil exporters, after Saudi Arabia, and Europe still depends on Russia’s natural gas. Russia also controlled the agenda in BRICS, such as inviting many delegations and heads of states (including the leader of Palestine) and discussing de-dollarization, as seen from the latest BRICS Summit in Kazan in 2024, showing activities without the involvement of Western countries.
Indonesia’s minerals and downstream strategy
Indonesia is known for its abundant reserves of natural resources, especially minerals deemed “critical” by many Western countries. These minerals, such as cobalt, nickel, platinum, tungsten, magnesium, and chromium, are a central element of the future of technology development, Indonesia’s critical mineral resources include nickel (1.5 billion tons), copper (640 million tons), bauxite (927 million tons), and tin (1.2 billion tons).
By building on these natural resources, Indonesia wishes to establish a thriving battery and electric vehicle (EV) industry. Realizing nickel’s potential, the Indonesian government banned the export of raw nickel ore in 2020, with its downstreaming policy (hilirisasi). As regulated by national Law no. 4/2009 on Mining Minerals and Coals, Indonesia downstream policy prohibits the export of raw materials (such as oil, gas, agro, coal, mining and mineral-based industry) to promote the development of the country’s processing and refining industry. This move promotes the added value in mining products before exportation, and this policy boosted Indonesia’s nickel export earnings, from $2 billion in 2019 to a huge rise $30 billion in 2022.
By joining BRICS, Indonesia may have support from middle-income countries, also to boost its economy without Western controls.
However, China currently dominates all stages of the global EV battery supply chain. To mitigate the risks associated with one dominant market actor, the US and the European Union (EU) are actively seeking to adopt new partners and partnerships to reduce dependencies on China. One of such forum is the US-led Minerals Security Partnership (MSP). Indonesia serves a good potential partner due to its natural resources that MSP seeks.
However, Indonesia’s nickel export ban has triggered disputes with trading partners. The EU filed a complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) arguing for the violation of free trade principles. The trade tension also came from the US to limit Indonesia’s market reach, with the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) excluding Indonesian nickel from EV tax incentives.
Indeed, the EU-filed suits against the Indonesian export ban policy were seen by Indonesians as a form of domination of Western powers in the global economic system, and by joining BRICS, Indonesia may have support from middle-income countries, also to boost its economy without Western controls.
Indonesia and “free-active” diplomacy?
In the first place, Indonesia wants to be partners to all countries and states. As the founding father, Mohammad Hatta, stated Indonesian foreign policy adheres to “free and active” (bebas dan aktif) diplomacy, meaning cooperation with all countries, without taking extreme steps or following one bloc of power, such as the US-led Western and USSR-led communist blocs during the Cold War. It is also known as non-alignment policy. Such policy marked Indonesia as one of Non-Aligned Movement founders since 1955.
Now by joining BRICS, does Indonesia still apply its non-aligned policy and free-active diplomacy? Citizens with the help of today’s fast information and social media may “push” the government to act and sometimes it is allegedly hard for Indonesia to act neutral. Moreover, with the challenges of the climate crisis, technology, sustainability issues, and conflict mitigation, the world needs a multilateral process that leans towards one big bloc, namely majority votes. With BRICS membership, Indonesia had shown its preference.
In the Ukrainian war 2022, Indonesia seemed to act neutral and the president at that time, Joko Widodo even had a chance to visit both Ukraine and Russian leaders. Indonesian citizens, though, were mostly pro-Russian, believing that Russia was fighting the US and its puppet government in Ukraine. In these circumstances, it is hard to act neutral.
Also, with Indonesia among the first countries to recognize Palestine in 1988, this means that Indonesia does not support Israel, the US’s ally. Meanwhile, disregarding Taiwan to support China’s one-state policy also shows that Indonesia is leaning toward a big country power.
Indonesian membership in BRICS inclines towards the formation of one bloc of the Global South.
However, cooperation with the US-led MSP could facilitate “upgrading” the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) requirements in Indonesia and provide access to sustainable financing. Some ”Western” investments have been cancelled due to Indonesia’s poor ESG record, leading to, for example, ecological impacts on the citizens surrounding the mining area. This could also lead to reduced dominance of Chinese companies in the Indonesian market, noting that a single supplier or dominant actor increases the supply chain risks. Cooperation with MSP would thus help Indonesia upgrade its nickel production for the battery/EV ecosystem development according to the ESG-related regulatory requirements.
On one hand, BRICS does not provide information on how Indonesia could be supported in its economic potential. On the other hand, Indonesia’s membership in BRICS shows closer cooperation with China and Russia that is perceived as ”a risk” by the Western bloc. Leaning towards one bloc is likely to undermine the potential to cooperate under the MSP which may help Indonesia to step up its game concerning environmental and social sustainability.
Indonesian membership in BRICS inclines towards the formation of one bloc of the Global South, as there is no Western representative there. However, at the same time, Indonesia is also a member of G20, with 18 other countries, along with the EU and African Union (since 2023), which represents 85% of the world economy and two-thirds of the global population. All founders of BRICS are also members of G20.
Indonesia should think strategically about its BRICS membership for Indonesian interests, too. It is not only a chance for Indonesia to contribute more to the world, but also a place to boost the Indonesian economy through its natural resources. Instead of supporting ambitions of a few countries in BRICS (in acquiring UN position) and violating its own ‘free and active’ diplomacy or non-alignment policy, it is time that Indonesia shows what it’s worth and stops being solely a follower.
BRICS shows that non-Western countries have potential in redefining global governance, especially as they are producers of key minerals for green technologies, accelerated by “global transition to a low-carbon economy, driven by technological advancement and the push for sustainable energy resources”. It is best to implement sustainable work in a multilateral way, as initiated by the UN, BRICS, even MSP, instead of, e.g. bilateral cooperation with China.
Ratih D. Adiputri is a postdoc researcher at the University of Lapland and the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, focusing on research in green energy transition from the Global South perspectives and environmental multilateralism.
Article image: CHUTTERSNAP / Unsplash
