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Opinion

Why the BRICs nations have not turned the world upside down

Grouping was never ready for today's crop of leaders

| China
A screen displays leaders of the BRICS nations, clockwise from top left, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, Cyril Ramaphosa and Jair Bolsonaro attending the 13th BRICS summit via video link on Sept. 9: strongmen tend to be weak where it matters most.   © Xinhua/AP

William Pesek is an award-winning Tokyo-based journalist and author of "Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan's Lost Decades."

As BRICs turns 20, the race is on to explain why the thesis developed by Jim O'Neill -- the British economist who coined the acronym that stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China -- did not pan out. No, those four countries are not about to turn the globe upside down and shake it for spare change.

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