The days of Western global hegemony are numbered
We exploit our own working populations to enrich the ruling elites, to speak nothing of the calamities we have wrought on other countries with invasions, wars, overthrown governments and leaders assassinated - again, just for the benefit of our oligarchical elites - because they would not submit to the rule of neo-colonialist policies set by American instruments of power: the IMF and World Bank. We evilly and cynically foment conflict and war just to empty our stockpiles of weapons so they have to be replenished by the military industrial complex.
Nobody is being "held hostage" by China. BRICS serves up an alternative economic system to the corrupt self-serving systems the West imposes, often by violence. How can we know this? Because China has in fact never projected military force in other countries. They haven't even developed or built such capability. There are no Chinese carrier battlegroups. No government was ever overthrown by China. What they have to offer is mutually beneficial trade, and all are free to say
No without threat of reprisal. In fact, more and more are saying
Yes: BRICS has expanded, and 30 more countries are applying for membership to date.
I am hopeful that this development will shine a light on China and BRICS as a model for others to follow as a peaceful means of achieving economies that work for the benefit of common people. Xi and Putin will be remembered as the greatest statesmen of these times, if not in the minds and media in the West then certainly in the rest of world as evidenced by the growing solidarity.