China has done much of the heavy lifting behind BRICS' growing economic clout, according to economist Surjit Bhalla, who argues that the bloc's rise looks far less impressive when China is taken out of the equation.
His central argument is that BRICS' growing global economic footprint is being driven overwhelmingly by China, rather than by broad-based gains across its members.
BRICS' share of global goods exports rose from 23% in 2011 to 25% in 2023, but excluding China, the share actually fell from 12.4% to 10.1%.
Bhalla calculates that China accounted for 94% of the increase in BRICS' share of global goods exports between 2011 and 2023.
That underpins his broader conclusion that BRICS' economic rise remains overwhelmingly a China story, rather than evidence of broad-based economic gains across the bloc.
China has done much of the heavy lifting behind BRICS' growing economic clout, according to economist Surjit Bhalla, who argues that the bloc's rise looks far less impressive when China is taken out of the equation.
BRICS, which brings together major emerging economies including India, China, Brazil, Russia and South Africa, has expanded in recent years and now has 11 members. Its share of global income rose from 21.9% in 2011 to 28.9% in 2025.
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But Bhalla's analysis shows that China accounted for 72% of that increase. The other 10 members, taken together, saw their share of global income fall from 11.9% in 2011 to 11.5% in 2025.
In a Substack post titled “BRICS: A Club of One”, Bhalla examined the bloc's economic performance using data on income and trade. His central argument is that BRICS' growing global economic footprint is being driven overwhelmingly by China, rather than by broad-based gains across its members.
China increased its share of world income from 10% in 2011 to 17.4% in 2025.
The contrast is even sharper in trade. BRICS' share of global goods exports rose from 23% in 2011 to 25% in 2023, but excluding China, the share actually fell from 12.4% to 10.1%.
CHINA'S WEIGHT INSIDE BRICS HAS GROWN
The concentration becomes even clearer when looking at China's economic weight within the bloc.
China accounted for 45.6% of BRICS income in 2011. By 2025, its share had risen to 60.2%.
Among the five original BRICS members — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — China's share of income increased from 54.1% to 68.9% over the same period.
Bhalla notes that China's share of the bloc's population actually fell during this period, from 38.4% to 35.7%.
In other words, China's economic weight inside BRICS has increased sharply even as its share of the bloc's population has declined.
TRADE TELLS A SIMILAR STORY
Bhalla then turns to global goods exports.
BRICS' share of world goods exports increased from 23% in 2011 to 25% in 2023.
But once China is removed, the share falls from 12.4% to 10.1%.
Bhalla calculates that China accounted for 94% of the increase in BRICS' share of global goods exports between 2011 and 2023.
He goes further by removing both China and the four BRICS oil exporters — Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran.
The remaining six countries — Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia — accounted for 5.1% of global goods exports in 2011 and 5.1% in 2023.
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For Bhalla, this is the clearest indication that the bloc's broader trade story is not one of sustained growth across its members.
BRICS' GROWTH HAS BEEN FAR FROM BROAD-BASED
China and Ethiopia nearly tripled their dollar incomes between 2011 and 2025, while India's income per person roughly doubled.
But three members were poorer in dollar terms in 2025 than in 2011, according to his calculations.
Brazil's income per person was down 6%, South Africa's was down 20%, and Iran's was down 36%.
Bhalla notes that South Africa, one of the original members, recorded negative growth in per-capita dollar income across the period.
Importantly, Bhalla does not claim that BRICS membership caused these countries to underperform.
In fact, he explicitly says there is no evidence in the data establishing such a causal relationship.
BRICS has no common market, tariff preference, transfer mechanism or binding economic commitment, he notes. Therefore, the economic performance of its members cannot simply be attributed to their membership of the grouping.
His question, instead, is whether BRICS is actually delivering the economic benefits that its growing global footprint might suggest.
BRICS IS NOT OUTPERFORMING THE REST OF THE WORLD
Bhalla compares BRICS members with 125 countries that had populations above three million and data available for both 2011 and 2025.
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The median BRICS member ranked 66th, with annual per-capita income growth of 2.7%.
That was also the median growth rate among countries outside BRICS.
Only five of the 11 members outperformed the global median, according to his analysis.
Bhalla points instead to countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal and Georgia among the fastest-growing economies. He argues that many of these countries have benefited from trade access, investment and domestic reforms rather than membership of a geopolitical grouping.
INDIA IS DOING BETTER, BUT IT CAN DO MORE
Bhalla's assessment of India is more positive.
He calls India the second-best performer among the five long-standing BRICS members and ranks it 26th globally on his measure.
India's share of world income increased from 2.5% in 2011 to 3.5% in 2025, while per-capita income rose from 13.4% of the global average to 18.7%.
But India's performance in global goods exports has been less impressive, Bhalla argues.
India's share of world goods exports rose only slightly, from 1.71% in 2011 to 1.88% in 2023.
Bhalla contrasts this with Vietnam, whose share rose from 0.52% to 1.50% over the same period.
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Vietnam's goods exports increased from $93 billion to $345 billion, while India's rose from $307 billion to $432 billion, according to the figures cited by Bhalla.
The comparison suggests that India's gains in income have not been matched by a similarly strong increase in its share of global merchandise trade.
Bhalla's broader argument is that India should not confuse BRICS' growing global profile with India's own economic progress.
He argues that India's economic future will depend more on increasing trade, attracting investment and pursuing domestic reforms than on its membership of a multilateral grouping.
At the same time, he does not argue that India should abandon BRICS or diplomacy with its members. His earlier argument, which he revisits in the Substack post, is that India can maintain relations with all countries while also building closer political and economic ties with the US and Europe.
His criticism is particularly focused on China's growing weight within BRICS. He notes that China accounts for roughly two-thirds of the bloc's income and 60% of its exports, while also highlighting India's trade deficit with China and the difference in Chinese and US direct investment in India.
Bhalla's argument is not that BRICS cannot become a more economically significant grouping. Rather, he says the bloc needs to demonstrate that its growth extends beyond China's performance.
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He says he would reconsider his assessment if intra-BRICS trade grew faster than members' trade with the rest of the world, if lending by the New Development Bank materially increased investment, or if BRICS' share of global income continued to rise even after China's contribution was excluded.
So far, Bhalla says, none of these conditions has been met.
That underpins his broader conclusion that BRICS' economic rise remains overwhelmingly a China story, rather than evidence of broad-based economic gains across the bloc.
In Bhalla's formulation, BRICS is “one rising power, four members going sideways, three going backwards, and six who arrived in 2024 and cannot yet be judged.”
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