Pakistan and the BRICS Plus in the New Era: A Perspective of Neo-Functionalism

Abstract China proposed the idea of ‘BRICS Plus’ in 2017. However, this hint exasperated India owing to its diverse political and strategic preferences. Conspicuously, the reason for India’s disapproval relates to a probable role for Pakistan through the BRICS plus. Particularly, in the backdrop is China’s progress on regional integration through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the significance extended to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). In fact, inimical impulses for Pakistan were also felt when India attempted to label Pakistan as a country ‘promoting state-sponsored terrorism’ through a BRICS summit held in Goa in 2016; the move was later vetoed both by China and Russia. Meanwhile, India’s bilateral relations with China also lacked synergy, which sometimes impact their interaction within the BRICS framework. If viewed through the Neo-Functionalism framework and its concept of ‘spill-over,’ BRICS plus can reinforce incentives of cooperation in various sectors within a larger group of countries. Interest groups will begin to flourish at a regional level and domestically these groups will lobby their governments to further integrate. This will be overall critical for BRICS in order to steadily engage the world order as a multilateral forum. The question is, will India let go of bilateralism and accept the role of regional countries, particularly Pakistan? This article intends to explore the very concept of the transregional organisation of BRICS and the impact of the nature of relations between India and China. It also illustrates how states in the region, specifically Pakistan, have an intrinsic potential to complement the transregional agenda of BRICS and BRICS plus, particularly through its strategic geographic location and CPEC. For the persistent rise of BRICS, members will have to let go of bilateralism and allow the countries on the periphery to play their role.