The BRICS summit kicks off in the Russian city of Kazan today, marking the first of its kind since Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates joined the founders Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in expanding the group. While Saudi Arabia has been invited to join too, it has not formally done so yet. The bloc's growing influence is increasingly being recognised as a counterweight to the G7 and IMF on the international stage.

The following chart looks at data from a recent Ipsos survey on how different nations are viewed around the world, including a number of the BRICS. It is important to note here that while this survey was extensive, including 23,800 adults across 31 countries, in terms of global representation, this data only captures part of the picture, as some regions are underrepresented. For example, South Africa was the only country surveyed in Africa.

Ipsos found that views of Russia and China have soured since 2019. Where an average of 26 percent of respondents surveyed in the first wave thought that Russia used their influence mostly for bad, prior to its invasion of Ukraine, that figure has since worsened to 48 percent holding the same opinion in 2024. Only one in ten respondents said that Russia mainly used its influence for good. This makes it the most negatively perceived country of the options.

Perceptions of China have declined by 10 percentage points between the two survey waves. Views on the country are also more mixed, although still largely negative, with only 13 percent of respondents saying that the country is using its influence for good, while 30 percent said the country used its influence mostly for bad and 29 percent state it's not so clear cut. In 2024, Indonesia and South Africa had the most positive view of China of the countries surveyed, with 34 percent of respondents in each nation saying the superpower used its influence largely for good, while 39 percent and 36 percent, respectively, said China acted for a mix of good and bad. By contrast, 62 percent of South Koreans said China mostly used its influence for bad and only five percent said for good.

India has a more positive view abroad than its aforementioned BRICS partners, albeit with one in four adults still stating that it uses its influence for both good and bad. Three in ten respondents said, however, that the country does not use its influence at all. Meanwhile, Iran, which joined the BRICS on January 1, saw its score drop over the past five years, with 37 percent of respondents now stating that it uses its influence abroad mostly for bad. Pending group member Saudi Arabia saw its image slightly improve.

The United States, a key player in the G7, had the highest proportion of respondents stating that it uses its influence abroad for both good and bad, at 36 percent. Among U.S. respondents themselves, 32 percent agreed with this statement. In South Korea, this rose to 50 percent. Of the 31 countries polled, the populations with the worst views of the U.S. were Indonesia and Turkey, where 36 percent and 33 percent, respectively, said the U.S. used its influence mostly for bad. The U.S. and Israel had the highest share of people saying the country used its influence for good (34 percent, 31 percent).