In October 2013, during a visit to Indonesia, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the launching of the New 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, just one month after announcing the New Silk Road Economic Belt, while on a visit to Kazakhstan. These two initiatives, followed in 2014 by the plan to put together the BRICS New Development Bank and China’s establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that Fall, constitute a new paradigm for mankind.

The current international situation is rife with change, uncertainty and crisis in the Middle East, Asian Pacific, and Europe, largely due to shifting world power. Chen Xiangyang overviews changes and contradictions around the globe from a realist perspective on power relations.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently presided over a discussion on international security at the UN in New York. The principle of unity and multilateral cooperation, the basis of the original UN Charter, was the foreground to China’s continued calls for cooperation on investments, terrorism, and military trust mechanisms.

As the BRICS prepare to launch the New Development Bank, Fernando Menéndez explores the political and economic factors motivating its creation and what it might imply for Latin America.

With the launch of the New Development Bank, Curtis S. Chin provides four recommendations the BRICS should consider when creating the international financial institution.

The most recent BRICS summit was noteworthy for generating the first concrete collective initiatives in the group’s history. Whereas the BRICS past meetings and had yielded mostly joint declarations, the July 15 summit in Brazil saw them launch two high-profile financial initiatives. Perhaps even more important, they seem prepared to undertake other collective projects in the energy and nonproliferation realms.

No sooner had the dust settled from the World Cup than Brazil played host to the five leaders of the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. An immediate outcome of the Fortaleza summit was the formation of the New Development Bank, a development finance institution to rival the World Bank. The group also announced a currency reserve pool as an alternative to the IMF. Done right, both initiatives could change the institutional landscape for multilateral development financing.

While it is rumored that Chinese President Xi Jinping requested the BRICS Summit in Brazil be held in July so he could attend the World Cup, Fernando Menéndez argues that China’s president should have more on his mind than a football game and highlights the significance of the upcoming BRICS Summit.

Expectations about the upcoming BRICS meeting in Brazil on July 15 are high, with many of the participant leaders aiming for the meeting to be a success for various political reasons. Eric Farnsworth analyzes these expectations, as well as the topics on the BRICS agenda for discussion.

With trade between China and Africa worth nearly $166 billion last year, it is no wonder investments from and exports to China are at an all time high. However, as South African President Jacob Zuma subtly noted last month in Beijing at the tri-annual China-Africa Forum, Africa desperately needs a transfer of technology from China too.