Allying with Xi and Putin is a dangerous game

Take your partners, please, for the next dance at the autocrats ball. This week at Sandton, outside Johannesburg, the anti-western Brics alliance is tripping the light fantastic. There’s the host, South Africa, being swept along by China. Here comes India, a democracy that cannot decide who it wants to dance with, being subjected to intense wooing by its old friend Russia. An exuberant Brazil is conducting the orchestra, a familiar anti-American tune.

According to the hype, this gathering of the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) represents the latest stage in the growing power of a bloc to rival the West. A queue of non-aligned countries hopes to join. They include Iran (but of course), Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Cuba, the UAE, Argentina, Egypt,