BRIC Meet June 16 2009

Brazil, Russia, India and China have been slow to embrace the BRIC acronym, coined in 2001 to describe the four giant emerging markets. But now they're trying to convert their shared bulk into clout—and none more so than Brazil. On June 16, at Brazil's urging, BRIC leaders will meet in Russia to discuss an ambitious agenda: overhauling the international financial system, enlarging the United Nations Security Council and dumping the dollar as the world's reserve currency. The powwow is being billed as a test of whether the BRICs can shift the global power equation. But perhaps the biggest test will be for Brazil.

Brazil has always been the outlier of the four. It's the slowest-growing, expanding at half the rate that China and India have over the last decade, and at two thirds the pace Russia has. It alone has no nuclear weapons. It's more enthusiastic about free trade than Russia and China are, and it sided with the U.S. against India in favor of opening agricultural markets. "China, India and Russia already count as global players," says a senior Brazilian diplomat. "We do not."

Even as Brazil pushes for a united BRIC front, it is touting its advantages over its outsized peers. Minister of Strategic Affairs Roberto Mangabeira Unger recently pressed Brazil's coded claims to lead the BRICs by calling it a "flawed but vibrant democracy" with "real national unity" (unlike India), "no enemies" (unlike Russia) and enjoying "nearly universal sympathy" (unlike China). When the four meet, the real issue may not be whether the West is listening, but whether they can see eye to eye.