Question in title.
Vietnam is easy, they don't want the ire of the US. They're threading the needle of getting US support because the US + China are unfriendly while not upsetting anyone too much.
Some members of BRICS are currently taking part in sanctions against DPRK and aren't likely to stop as they don't want to give up trade with the US or Europe for it, so their application would be rejected as it requires all 5 founding members to agree to the application until a new criteria system is official.
I don't know enough about Laos to guess.
Pretty sure every single member are taking part in sanctions against DPRK lol
I believe only China and Russia are trading with DPRK off the books and even then it's in limited amounts
Yeah I say "some" purely because it's obvious China and Russia aren't sticking to them.
The issue is ultimately that the value in remaining partners with US/EU is too high. Until that relationship collapses DPRK is shit out of luck with BRICS.
Laos is basically still more minefield than country, plus with no coast it’s really tough for them to develop. Hopefully the new high speed rail line with China plus the upcoming one connecting to Thailand will be a game changer
I don’t know enough about Laos to guess.
It's a tiny landlocked country in a strategically useless location.
It's a fairly strategic location, centred between Vietnam, China, Thailand and Cambodia (and China/Vietnam would love to bypass Cambodia for land access to the relatively westernised markets of Malaysia and Thailand and Singapore.) The main issue is lack of modern infrastructure, exacerbated by the war wiping almost all of the existing infrastructure out, including 2000 year old passes and roads.
With the new rail networks opening up Laos is likely to become a key part of the western Silk Road project.
There is of course also the fact that Laos is a de facto client state of Vietnam, albeit a willing one.
Laos is basically only still socialist because its in a geographically useless location, so the cia did try hard enough to overthrow its government, half of the country is a nightmare to develop due to the minefields and unexploded bombs.
For vietnam could join definitely BRICs but they seem to be unwilling to be against america, for how long, that remains to be seen. DPRK is neutral and doesn’t bother with a lot of international politics, also not important economically enough.
Most new BRICs members are basically upcoming big economies or middle economies screwed over by europe and usa.
tbh, its unclear to me what the benefit is of joining BRICS. It seems like incoherent, still very much in the process of becoming something.
Moreover, ASEAN, which both Laos and Vietnam are a part of, has already expressed interest in currency sovereignty
It's more like, why would BRICS want them?
They're geopolitical mice (Vietnam) out of the way (who wants Laos?), and will only cause problems (DPRK).
They’re geopolitical mice (Vietnam)
Given some of the proposed members, Vietnam (a significant manufacturing country of nearly 100 million) is not a "mouse"
