Why Anwar wants BRICS — without really joining it

Under Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia has continued to pursue its long-held foreign policy of “strategic equidistance”. In particular, Kuala Lumpur’s recent application to join the international grouping BRICS bears Anwar’s personal imprimatur.

Malaysia’s “strategic equidistance” is driven by factors such as the country’s colonial past, small population and land size, and outward-oriented economic model. Yet, while constraints and incentives are often predetermined, leaders can also influence their nation’s foreign policies via their preferences and values. This is especially true for Malaysia, where prime ministers can be “chief architects” of foreign policy.

The BRICS decision was announced by Anwar on 16 June 2024, ahead of any official statements from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was only two days later that Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said his ministry was “analysing, studying and assessing the necessity to apply for membership in [BRICS]”. Despite Mohamad Hasan’s advice for caution in dealing with Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov conducted a working visit to Malaysia as a follow-up to the ASEAN Regional Forum in Laos in July. He then received Malaysia’s official application to join BRICS.

Some analysts have assessed that Malaysia sought to access BRICS on the grounds of trade diversification. Others note that US-China geopolitical alignment and domestic constraints led to the decision. It is worth examining the move in light of the prime minister’s own intellectual and moral worldview, as expressed in his books The Asian Renaissance and the newly released Rethinking Ourselves.

One key theme in Anwar’s writings is civilisational history, which is echoed in his borrowing of the word Madani (“civilised”) to brand his administration and the theme of Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship (“Inclusivity and Sustainability”). He argues that the West has imposed a universalist notion of progress upon its contemporaries, which overrides the legitimacy of other civilisations’ worldviews. This can be remedied through geopolitical multipolarity, as other powers grow in influence and offer smaller nations like Malaysia room for manoeuvre. From this vantage point, BRICS functions as a platform for negotiation for rising powers on convergent policy issues.

Furthermore, BRICS can be a forum for Islamic countries to promote their priorities. Despite its inception as a disparate grouping of large emerging economies, BRICS has in the past two years processed applications from Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This has given the grouping a new focus. For example, the Middle East and North Africa were heavily featured in the outcomes of the 2025 BRICS Summit in Rio.

Anwar’s longstanding advocacy for Palestine is well-known, and it is a major plank in his broader Islamic diplomacy. He has more recently employed the ASEAN-China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit as a platform for this cause, and seems to believe BRICS could be leveraged as another forum to elevate his profile as an Islamic leader.

Yet, aside from compatibility between Anwar’s beliefs and BRICS’ rhetoric, the question is whether BRICS membership can deliver tangible benefits to Malaysia.

On the narrative front, BRICS’ major members pay lip service to the notion of civilisational harmony, but rifts in policy priorities are longstanding. India, for example, increasingly views China as a competitor. While border disputes between the two have garnered attention, India participates in initiatives like the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, which seeks to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Brazil has echoed India’s concerns that BRICS membership expansion primarily serves Chinese interests.

Furthermore, while BRICS has expanded to include four majority-Muslim countries, they are by no means in agreement on how to approach the Palestine issue. Egypt is stuck between its relationship with the US and the need to support Palestine on its border. Indonesia is moving towards a moderate position and has mooted participating in the US-led peacekeeping mission. Iran is a key ally of Hamas, and the UAE is committed to normalised relations with Israel.

The ability of BRICS to deliver economic benefits is also limited. Malaysia already has established economic ties with most of the grouping’s current membership through ASEAN and its associated free trade agreements. Furthermore, structural differences between members impede concerted action in other areas.

For example, de-dollarisation, a major geoeconomic initiative the group wishes to advance, means different things to different members. Full de-dollarisation is motivated by a desire to liberate members of US influence that could be “weaponised”: Russia and China push hardest as they have the most to gain. Indonesia and India are more interested in the cost-saving and risk-minimising effects of using local currencies in settlements.

While important, these issues are not determinant. A key consideration is how foreign policy plays out domestically. Malaysia’s membership in BRICS is likely to be driven more by the “softer” cultural-political issues of which Anwar speaks than hard cost-and-benefit analysis. The State of Southeast Asia Survey 2025 revealed an unusually high preference for ASEAN to strategically align itself with China over the US (70.8% for Malaysia versus an average of 47.7% across ASEAN). Malaysians view Russia and President Vladimir Putin more favourably than average, due to Russia’s perceived support for Middle Eastern countries against Israel and the US.

Malaysia’s current position as a “partner country” but not a full-fledged member of BRICS is therefore as much a benefit for Anwar’s domestic image as it is for his actual foreign policy. It is able to engage BRICS economically, participate in conversations about civilisational harmony, and make rhetorical statements about the remaking of the world order, whilst remaining conveniently non-committal on positions that would complicate its relationships with key countries.

Thus, Anwar the political chameleon, is able to simultaneously condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine in Rethinking Ourselves (“A war in Ukraine is just allowed to go about its business, as if a land war in Europe was normal, let alone acceptable.”), while avoiding the topic before Vladimir Putin himself. With regards to BRICS, Anwar has crafted a way for Malaysian foreign policy to be, as veteran academic Khoo Boo Teik describes, “all things to all men”.

This article was first published in Fulcrum, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute’s blogsite.

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