It is fascinating and a lot is at stake. let s hearfrom patrick gaspard, the president and ceo of the centerfor america in progress, and a former us ambassador to south africa. it is of course significant whenever brics comes together. as a formation, they represent 40% of the global population and a quarter of the world s gdp. as a bloc, brics now controls more of the global gdp than the g7 does and, of course, china is at the heart of that. this is really a consequential moment for the brics coalition, it is indeed intending to institutionalise its values that s projecting into the world. china s economy is incredibly wobbly at this moment. they have not recovered from the pandemic and, of course, russia, in the person of vladimir putin cannot even attend this summit because there is an arrest warrant from the icc of which south africa is a signatory. so china takes an outsize role, but other countries are not