Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, Requests Assistance from China to Join BRICS

During an official visit to China, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is requesting Beijing’s backing for his country to join the freshly enlarged BRICS club of rising economies. At their annual conference last month, the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa decided to welcome six additional full members.

Maduro stated his goal to obtain “the entry of Venezuela into BRICS, with the support of China, with the support of all countries” in an interview with the Chinese official news agency Xinhua on Saturday. With Beijing’s assistance, “a country with the largest oil reserves in the world” may join, according to Maduro.

“The enlarged BRICS could be defined as the great engine for the acceleration of the birth of a new world, a world of cooperation where the global south has the leading voice,” said Maduro to Xinhua. “The BRICS nations accelerate the de-dollarization of the world, the emergence of a new international financial system, and of a new just economic order,” he said.

For his first state visit to China since 2018, Maduro landed there on Friday and is anticipated to remain through Thursday. Beijing is Venezuela’s largest creditor and maintains tight connections with the socialist country, which is politically isolated and plagued by inflation.

Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates will join the BRICS club as new members on January 1. China sees the BRICS as a counterbalance to international organizations that it perceives as being controlled by Western adversaries like the United States. As Xi misses a summit of the G20 major economies in India, Maduro pays a visit.