BRICS in 2027: A Perspective on How Western China Development Could Help Shape the Global South

Kuala Lumpur - With the New Delhi summit having marked the high point of India's year as BRICS chair, attention is naturally turning to what China will bring when it takes over the chairmanship in 2027. Beijing has already given some early signals.

At the BRICS trade ministers' meeting in Jaipur in August, China's representative called for deeper cooperation in trade and investment, the digital economy, services trade, green minerals, artificial intelligence and special economic zones. These are sensible priorities. From the Center for Advanced Studies and Research (CASR)'s perspective, China's experience in developing its western region deserves closer attention and could offer practical lessons for development across the Global South.

Western China is made up of twelve provincial-level regions, stretching from the borders of Southeast Asia in the south to Central Asia in the far west. Together they cover about 72 per cent of China's land and are home to around 27 per cent of its people. For much of the modern history, these regions sat far from the coast and the main trade routes, more importantly lagged behind the eastern provinces in income and investment. Since the start of this century, China has made a sustained national effort to change that. Its Five-Year Plan for 2026 to 2030 places high-quality growth, greener development and wider opening among the country's priorities, providing a broader policy setting for continued development in the west.

This matters for BRICS because the problem western China has worked on is one that many of its partners know well. Five of the ten BRICS partner countries, namely Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Uganda and Uzbekistan are landlocked with no direct access to the open sea, and so is Ethiopia among the full members. Even the larger coastal economies in the group have interior or remote areas that struggle to share in national growth. For all of them, the central question is much the same. How can a region far from the sea connect to world markets, attract investment and create good jobs?

Western China does not offer a ready-made answer, and no country's path can simply be copied by another. What it does offer is more than two decades of practical experience, including both successes and lessons learnt that other developing economies may find worth studying.

The clearest example is transport. The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC) links western China's inland cities by rail and road to southern ports, chiefly those on the Beibu Gulf and from there by sea to Southeast Asia and beyond. In 2025, the corridor's rail services carried over 1.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units of container cargo, that is an increase of 47.6 per cent on the previous year. Its wider network now connects western China with ports across more than 120 countries and regions. The Pinglu Canal in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, set to open to shipping on September 16 will add a new river route to the sea for the southwest and shorten the inland water journey to the Beibu Gulf by more than 560 kilometres. Further north and west, freight trains link western Chinese cities with Central Asia and Europe.

For landlocked partners such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the way China has combined rail, road, sea links and customs cooperation across long distances could offer a useful reference as they plan their own routes to the sea and to larger markets.

Western China has also become a place where newer approaches to development are being tried, in ways that fit well with China's stated BRICS priorities.

China's "East Data, West Computing" programme offers a clear lesson in which regions rich in land and renewable energy can host data centres that serve distant economic hubs through fast digital links. By placing computing capacity in western provinces and connecting it to major coastal markets, including the Greater Bay Area, China is turning local energy advantages into wider digital growth. The same approach complements the west's expanding wind and solar capacity and Qinghai's efforts to build industries around its salt-lake resources.

BRICS members and partners with energy-rich interiors could adapt this model rather than copy it outright. They could identify places with reliable clean power and available land, connect them to domestic and regional markets, and then pair data infrastructure with local skills, research and businesses. Used this way, the idea could support artificial intelligence and the digital economy while helping countries process resources at home, create better jobs and build lasting local value instead of simply exporting raw materials. This also helps bridge the development gap among BRICS members and partners, as well as create synergy among their economies.

This connects directly with what China has now put on the table. At the New Delhi summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China would lead the creation of an open-source zone for artificial intelligence among BRICS countries as part of a wider initiative on open-source and inclusive AI. An open-source zone is only as useful as the computing power and skills behind it and this is where western China's experience of siting data capacity in energy-rich inland regions becomes practically relevant for members and partners who wish to take part on their own terms rather than as consumers of capacity located elsewhere.

Malaysia's own experience shows how this kind of cooperation can work in practice. In 2012, China and Malaysia launched the China-Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park in Guangxi, one of China's western regions, followed in 2013 by its sister park in Kuantan, Pahang. Known as "Two Countries, Twin Parks", the arrangement was a pioneering model of cross-border industrial cooperation. By the end of 2024, the first phase of the Qinzhou park had attracted 345 projects and generated an industrial output of 106 billion yuan, and Malaysian products such as bird's nest, durian and coffee are now processed there for Chinese consumers. Malaysian palm oil also travels north into western China along the ILSTC. At the same time, researchers at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies have argued that the twin parks should now be reviewed, so that they continue to serve both countries well as the regional economy changes. That is a practical lesson worth carrying into any wider BRICS discussion on special economic zones. Such zones tend to work best when both sides can see clear and lasting benefits, and when they are adjusted over time rather than left unchanged.

There is also a wider point that Malaysian and other Southeast Asian observers would gently raise. Trade between China and ASEAN has grown strongly but the two sides have not benefited in the same way from every part of that growth. ING estimates that ASEAN's share of China's exports rose from 12.4 per cent in 2017 to 17.6 per cent in 2025, while its share of China's imports remained at around 15 per cent over the previous five years. As western China grows more prosperous, it could become a much larger market for goods from partner economies and not only a base for sending Chinese products outward.

If China's chairmanship presents western development in this two-way light - as a growing market, a source of investment and a partner in building local industries - it is likely to be received with genuine interest across the Global South.

China's BRICS chairmanship offers an opportunity to redefine development priorities around the needs of smaller and inland economies. By drawing on relevant lessons from its own experience, China can lead a practical agenda focused on stronger connectivity, easier trade, knowledge-sharing and well-designed financing that helps these economies reach wider markets and build lasting local growth.

BRICS brings together countries at different stages of development and with different national priorities and its decisions are made by consensus. Proposals are therefore most likely to gain support when they are open to all, focused on practical and commercial cooperation, and allow each member to take part at its own pace. In New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Modi thanked China for its support during India's chairmanship and conveyed India's good wishes for China's term ahead, while the New Delhi Declaration was adopted by consensus despite evident differences among members on West Asia. Both are encouraging signs that continuity between the two terms is possible and a development agenda built on shared experience should sit comfortably with that spirit.

Western China's journey from a remote interior to a region increasingly connected with the world is one of the less told parts of China's development story. For many BRICS members and partners, it may also be one of the most relevant.