As BRICS members converge in Johannesburg for a summit on Tuesday, the biggest agenda on the cards would be expansion with an expected formal move to draw Saudi Arabia closer. However, India, South Africa and Brazil are not very keen to bring in more countries given the effect it would have on their influence in the grouping.

Leaders from the BRICS economic bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will hold three days of meetings in Johannesburg’s financial district of Sandton.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be in attendance.

Chinese Premier Xi Jinping will also attend the meeting and although not in attendance physically due to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against him over the war in Ukraine, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will also make an appearance through a video link.

The main summit on Wednesday — and sideline meetings Tuesday and Thursday — are expected to produce general calls for more cooperation among countries in the Global South amid their rising discontent over perceived Western dominance of global institutions.

One specific policy point with more direct implications will be discussed and possibly decided on – the proposed expansion of the BRICS bloc, which was formed in 2009 by the emerging market countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, and added South Africa the following year.

Saudi Arabia is one of more than 20 countries to have formally applied to join BRICS in another possible expansion, South African officials say. Any move toward the inclusion of the world’s second-biggest oil producer in an economic bloc with Russia and China would clearly draw attention from the United States and its allies in an extra-frosty geopolitical climate, and amid a recent move by Beijing to exert some influence in the Persian Gulf.

“If Saudi Arabia were to enter BRICS, it will bring extraordinary importance to this grouping,” said Talmiz Ahmad, India’s former ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Even an agreement on the principle of expanding BRICS, which already consists of a large chunk of the developing world’s biggest economies, is a moral victory for the Russian and Chinese vision of the bloc as a counterbalance to the G-7, analysts say.

Both China and Russia favour adding more countries to bolster a kind of coalition — even if it’s only symbolic — amid China’s economic friction with the US and Russia’s Cold War-like standoff with the West because of the war in Ukraine.

Countries ranging from Argentina to Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Indonesia and United Arab Emirates have all formally applied to join alongside the Saudis, and are also possible new members.

If a number of them are brought in, “then you end up with a bigger economic bloc, and from that a sense of power,” said Prof. Alexis Habiyaremye of the College of Business and Economics at the University of Johannesburg.

However, Brazil, India and South Africa are less keen on expansion and seeing their influence diluted in what’s currently an exclusive developing world club, there is momentum for it. Although nothing has been decided, though, and the five countries must first agree on the criteria new members need to meet. That’s on the agenda in Johannesburg amid Beijing’s push.

The US has stressed its bilateral ties with South Africa, Brazil and India in an attempt to offset any outsized Russian and Chinese influence emanating from BRICS. In the buildup to the summit, the State Department said that the U. was “deeply engaged with many of the leading members of the BRICS association.”

With inputs from AP