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81© Tractus Aevorum 2 (2). Fall/Winter 2015: 190-203
BRICS MEMBERS AND THE MIGRATION CHALLENGE
Andrei V. Korobkov
Middle Tennessee State University
Abstract. While BRICS is quickly evolving, significant differences remain in the socio-economic structures, and the dynamics and goals of economic development of its member states. Migration represents one of the areas in which BRICS countries can have mutually complementary structural characteristics and goals of development, allowing for the formulation of coherent common policies. In particular, the formation of a system regulating various types of legal labor (highly skilled, educational, and low skilled) migration flows and preventing illegal migration within BRICS as well as the formulation of common policies in regard to migration exchanges with third countries is desirable. Of special importance is policy coordination in the field of highly skilled and educational migration, providing for a more effective use of BRICS members’ human capital and enhancing their cooperation in the fields of science, technology, and education.
Keywords: BRICS, migration, economic development, labor migration, highly skilled migration, educational migration.
Copyright: © 2015 Korobkov. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source, the Tractus Aevorum journal, are credited.
Correspondence to: Andrei V. Korobkov, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Middle Tennessee State University. Box 29, Murfreesboro, TN 37132, USA. E-mail: Andrei.Korobkov[at]mtsu.edu
УДК 327.7
СТРАНЫ БРИКС И ВЫЗОВЫ МИГРАЦИИ
Аннотация. Несмотря на быстрое развитие БРИКС, по-прежнему значительны различия между странами-членами в социальноэкономической структуре, а также в динамике и целях экономического развития. Миграция представляет собой одну из тех сфер, в которых страны БРИКС дополняют друг друга по структурным характеристикам и целям развития, что позволяет формулировать согласованную совместную политику. В этом русле представляются целесообразными формирование системы регулирования различных типов легальной трудовой миграции
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(высококвалифицированной, образовательной и низкоквалифицированной) и предотвращения нелегальной миграции в рамках БРИКС, а также разработка совместной политики в отношении обмена мигрантами с третьими странами. При этом особое значение имеет координация политики в области высококвалифицированной и образовательной миграции, которая способствует как более эффективному использованию странами-членами БРИКС человеческого капитала, так и усилению их сотрудничества в сфере науки, технологий и образования.
Ключевые слова: БРИКС, миграция, экономическое развитие,
трудовая миграция, высококвалифицированная миграция, образовательная миграция.
In recent years, BRICS has started to become a symbol of a slow, but consistent power shift away from the North Atlantic to the emergent powers of Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America. Its creation was quite indicative of the concern of a worldwide community of states with a postCold War global order dominated by the Global North.
BRICS brings together five large and economically important states—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Unfortunately, both their socio-economic structures and the dynamics and goals of their economic development differ significantly, complicating the formulation of coherent common policies. Thus, finding areas of mutually compatible interests would significantly enhance their future cooperation. Among these are science, technology, education, and migration.
The Capacity for Cooperation in Migration Sphere
Migration, in particular, represents one of the critical issues for all BRICS members, indicating the existence of a number of common problems and policy goals, even though their migration challenges vary significantly. At present, the migration phenomenon has acquired a truly worldwide importance: In 2013, 232 million people or about 3 percent of the world population, were international migrants.1 Of these, 136 million, or nearly 59 percent came to developed countries, and 96 million, or 41 percent, to developing ones.1 2 In addition, hundreds of millions of people, among them more than 229 million in China (including about 200 million
1 United Nations. “Population facts.” 2013. United Nations Report, September.
2 United Nations. “International Migration Report 2013.” 2013. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division, December, 1.
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who moved without obtaining a necessary permission),3 migrated within their countries. A significant share of these people either moved across the border in violation of the existing legislation or violated the law in some other way: overstayed their visas, engaged in activities not allowed by their status,4 or took up residence or employment in violation of their immigration status, thus becoming the irregular, informal, undocumented, or, as it is frequently said, illegal migrants.5
In the case of the Russian Federation (RF), following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the country has quickly become the center of the second-largest immigration system in the world. 12.3 million of current Russian residents were born outside the country,6 (compared to more than 45 million in the US, including 11 million illegals, the largest immigrant receiving state).7 Simultaneously, since 1991, more than 1.3 million Russian citizens obtained permits for permanent emigration to the West (Vishnevskii 2006, 325).
Migration also plays the major role in the development of other BRICS countries, representing some of the major players in the fields of both low qualified and skilled migration as well as migrant remittances. From 2000 to 2010, Russia was ranked fourth in the world in terms of annual net immigration (389,000), and South Africa—sixth (247,000), while India and China ranked respectively third and fourth among the world's emigration countries (with annual net losses of 490,000 and 418,000).8 These circumstances create a significant potential for their cooperation in this field.
The migration dynamics in the five BRICS states is such that they play all three possible roles in the world migration chain, as countries of emigration and immigration, as well as transit states—the jumping pads for migrants who are trying to move to one’s territory in order to go from
3 United Nations. “Global Migration: Demographic Aspects and Its Relevance for
Development.” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division. Technical Paper No. 2013/6, 17.
4 According to the Russian Federal Migration Service, in 2007, even among the migrants with legal work permits, 53 percent worked without a formal contract in shadow jobs (Tyuryukanova 2008).
5 It is worth mentioning, meanwhile, that the latter term is not technically correct because the majority of irregular migrants cross borders in order to engage in labor activities, not to commit crimes per se. Frequently, states themselves criminalize activities that are essentially legal and useful for the receiving societies through their legislative and executive actions.
6 The World Bank. 2010. The Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1.
7 The White House report in May 2011 has cited a figure of 10.8 million illegals in the United States (The White House. 2011. Building a 21st Century Immigration System. Washington, D.C.: The White House, 27).
8 United Nations. “International Migration Report 2013.” 2013. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division, December, 13.
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there to a third country. Besides that, while Russia's population is quickly declining (from 148 million in 1991 to 142 million at present),9 China, India, and Brazil have huge surplus populations, a fact that opens the doors for potential cooperation in the field of labor migration.10 11 Nevertheless, only in two territorially contiguous countries do there exist significant labor migration flows within BRICS: the relatively large-scale migration flow from China to the RF and migration (primarily irregular, and thus poorly documented) between India and China.
Characteristically, the scale of Chinese legal labor immigration to Russia is quickly growing. During 2001-09, the number of Chinese legally employed in Russia has increased sevenfold, with China now the largest supplier of labor to the RF from outside the post-Soviet region, and the third largest (after Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) overall. In 2011, the Chinese share in immigrant inflow to Russia from outside the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was 18.3 percent (Vishnevskii 2013, 481). The highest up-to-date number of legally registered Chinese labor migrants was 281,700 in 2008, while the overall number of Chinese in the RF is currently estimated at between 200,000 and 600,000n).
The Compatibility Issue
Even though migration flows within BRICS are limited in scale, there exists a number of important parallels among member states in terms of their migration situations and policy challenges. These circumstances create a need for states to both analyze each other’s migration policies and, potentially, to try to capitalize on their mutal compatibility in the migration sphere. Among the similarities, of particular interest are the following:
1. All BRICS members are dealing with large-scale migration flows of various types, both legal and illegal (irregular), external and internal. As mentioned previously, Russia ranks second in the world in terms of the number of immigrants on its territory. South Africa’s migrant population was estimated at between 4.5 and 5.7 percent of the population.12 In India,
9 An additional problem for Russia is the fact that, contrary to popular perception, the human and labor resources of the CIS are not unlimited. Their overall capacity does not exceed 9-10 million. In addition, a number of CIS states, primarily Kazakhstan, have started to compete with Russia for labor resources, particularly highly qualified workers. Thus, with time, the RF will have to look for alternative labor migrant sources (Vishnevskii 2011, 282).
10 In the last twenty-five years, the following migration corridors were at different times ranked among the ten numerically most important in the world: China-USA, India-USA, India-United Arab Emirates, Russia-Germany, and China-Republic of Korea (United Nations. “International Migration Report 2013.” 2013. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division, December, 6).
11 Vishnevskii 2006, 346; 2011, 278-9; Mukomel and Pain 2006, 25-6, 104.
12 International Organization for Migration. “The Migration: Read All about It”; Soami Mablala 2013.
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the 2001 census listed 6.2 million immigrants.13 Meanwhile, India ranks first in terms of the number of natives living abroad, with this number doubling between 1990 and 2013. 14 million Indians constantly live outside its borders, in 2013 surpassing Mexico, the former leader, while Russia and China rank third and fourth respectively (Inkpen 2014).
2. All five states are encountering a large-scale, long-term brain drain both through educational emigration and the direct outflow of qualified professionals, leading to the significant loss of a highly qualified labor force and financial losses associated with budgetary expenditures on education in the home countries.14 The size of the Russian intellectual diaspora abroad is estimated at between 150,000 and 200,000 (Korobkov 2014, 143). While emigration from India to the US essentially started just after World War II, by the beginning of the current century, 300,000 high tech experts and 35,000 physicians of Indian origin were working in the US. In 2011, 339,000 Chinese students studied overseas, while about 292,000 foreign students studied in China.15 By 2012, more than 2.6 million Chinese students completed their education abroad, but only 1.09 million returned home. In 2011, 179,000 Chinese and 102,000 Indian students studied in the US. At the same time, just 1,376 US students went to study in South Africa, 1,243 to India, and less than a thousand to China.16
This situation causes serious irritation on the part of the sending countries, leading, in particular, to demands to stop or slow down brain drain through such potential mechanisms as limits on exit from those countries, requirements to pay back tuition provided by the state, and, in cases of temporary migration, to leave apartments and other property as a collateral for educational grants and loans.
Simultaneously, within the BRICS group, India and China have already developed policies and are actively working on both upholding ties with their elite diasporas abroad and bringing back some of these individuals. In particular, India has introduced the Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI)—a non-resident ID card for Indians and their descendants permanently living abroad, allowing them to travel visa free and to take professional jobs, as well as guaranteeing them some property rights.
13 Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs. Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India. Census of India 2011: Migration.
14 On average, relatively poor countries invest up to $50,000 in the training of a university graduate and consequently have to absorb financial losses in the case of his or her emigration (“Brain Drain or Brain Bank?: The Impact of Skilled Migration on Poor-country Innovation.” 2008. National Bureau of Economic Research working paper series, December).
15 United Nations. “Global Migration: Demographic Aspects and Its Relevance for
Development.” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division. Technical paper No. 2013/6, 19; Institute of International Education. 2012. “Open Doors, Project-Atlas of Student Mobility.” New York: Institute of International Education.
16 UNESCO Institute of Statistics. “Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students.” 2011.
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Starting in 2010, China has offered guaranteed jobs and substantial bonuses to returning highly-qualified professionals and Chinese students studying abroad. RF authorities are also actively exploring various ways of working with the Russian intellectual diaspora, including the creation of the Skolkovo Innovation Center and the Russian World Foundation.
All five BRICS members are actively exploring ways to stimulate the inflow of international students and simplify legal procedures for both highly-qualified migrants and those applying for permanent immigration status as investors in the BRICS national economies. In particular, 1,100 German, 900 British, 850 American, 800 French, 530 Turkish, and 520 Chinese highly-qualified specialists are presently working in the RF.17 In China, between August 2004 and December 2011, 4,752 foreign citizens received permanent residency, of whom 1,735 were highly-qualified specialists. The major problems in this field are frequently related to the complexity of obtaining legal immigration status, a work permit, and legal recognition of their educational diplomas in the host countries. Thus, the potential of the immigrant labor force is not fully used. Meanwhile, more than 43 percent of migrants who came to Russia in 2009 from the CIS and Georgia had a professional education, including 18.3 percent who had university diplomas or some university education (Vishnevskii 2011, 258). Of those, 36.3 percent were willing to remain in Russia permanently, compared with 27.1 percent for the general immigrant population. In turn, Brazil issued 56,000 work visas for highly-qualified professionals in 2011 (Lyul’ko 2011). These policies need to be thoroughly studied by all group members. In addition, intellectual migration represents one of the areas in which the development of common national practices and policies toward other BRICS members, as well as the third countries, aimed at the formation of a common market of elite labor force—the area currently totally dominated by the Global North—are both possible and quite desirable.
3. As mentioned, besides being simultaneously the countries of emigration and immigration, many BRICS members also serve as the jumping pads for transit migrants trying to reach the more developed countries of the Global North. This multiplicity of roles is especially visible in the cases of Russia and South Africa, with the latter type of migration creating significant social, health, and security threats to the host states. In the case of Brazil, quick reversal of its traditional role of a labor emigration country to that of a migrant receiving state is quite remarkable. Starting in 2011, the number of immigrants exceeds that of emigrants. The large-scale return of many Brazilians, whose numbers abroad have declined from four to two million, is also visible (Lyul’ko 2011). In China, too, the quick numerical decline after 1990 of the twenty to thirty-four year-old population group due to restrictive demographic policies and quick urbanization could, in the long run, lead to the reversal of roles for
17 “From Brain Drain to Brain Gain.” 2014. Russia Direct Quarterly Report 5, 23.
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that country. Thus, in the future, the PRC could also become a net receiver of migrants.18 The recent rejection of the One Child policy testifies to the seriousness of this demographic shift.
4. All the BRICS states represent important actors in the area of international remittances, though their roles in this area differ. While Russia and South Africa19 belong to a group of significant migrant remittance-sending states,20 China, India, and Brazil are among the most important states receiving migrant remittances. India, in particular, accounts for about 10 percent of remittances sent to the home countries of migrants worldwide (Khadria 2010, 181). Not of least importance is the issue of “social” remittances: the flow of ideas and practices between the host and home countries of migrants (Faist 2010, 65). Considering the scale of migration encountered by BRICS states and the size of their diasporas, the impact of this factor on their development should not be underestimated.
5. All five states encounter serious problems related to illegal migration from neighboring states into their territory. Estimates of the number of illegal migrants on Russian territory vary significantly, from 2.1 million21 to 3-5 million.22 The expert consensus estimate currently is 2.4 million,23 while the overall number of labor migrants (both legal and illegal ones) on Russian territory is between 3.8 and 6.7 million.24 In
18 United Nations. “Global Migration: Demographic Aspects and Its Relevance for
Development.” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division. Technical paper No. 2013/6, 17.
19 Remittances from South Africa in 2013 were estimated at $1,123 million (International Organization for Migration. “The Migration: Read All about It.”).
20 On the Russian borders, Tajikistan has become the leader in world remittance rankings with nearly half of its GDP (48 percent) provided by officially recorded remittances ($4.1 billion in 2013). The Kyrgyz Republic and Moldova are ranked third and fifth with 31 and 24.5 percent respectively (The World Bank. “Migration and Remittance Flows in Europe and Central Asia: Recent Trends and Outlook, 2013-2016”). For the world economy in general, the size of remittances was about $400 billion in 2012 (Lobzeva 2012). UNDP estimated that remittances were received by about 500 million people worldwide (United Nations Development Programme. Human Development Report 2007: Human Development and Climate Change. New York: UNDP).
21 Romodanovskii, K. O. 2012. Vystuplenie direktora FMS Rossii na zasedanii Pravitel'stva RF, 9 avgusta [Presentation by the Federal Migration Service Director to the Meeting of Government of the Russian Federation, August 9].
22 Kontseptsiia gosudarstvennoi migratsionnoi politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii na period do 2025 goda, utverzhdena Prezidentom RF 13 iiunia 2012 goda [The State Migration Policy Concept of the Russian Federation for the Period until 2025. Approved by the President June 13, 2012], pp. 22 e), 23 zh); Mukomel 2005, 51.
23 Konsensus-otsenka chislennosti trudovykh migrantov v Rossii [Consensus Estimate of Labor Migrants in Russia]. 2010. April 9 (Konsensus-otsenka 9.4.0).
24 Mukomel 2013, 6.
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China, while the official number of foreigners who visited the country in 2012 was 27.2 million, including 2.9 million who came officially to work, some alarmist estimates speak of up to 50 million illegals (mostly in the south of the country, and primarily from neighboring states, as well as Pakistan and Africa), although the methodology of these calculations is not quite clear. In 2012 alone, the Chinese authorities expelled about 200,000 illegals from the PRC. In Brazil, the number of illegal migrants is estimated at between 600,000 and two million.25 For its part, South Africa has deported more than a million illegal migrants in the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s.26
6. All five BRICS states are facing serious problems related to human trafficking, a phenomenon that results in the expansion of the number of people located outside the legal space, the proliferation of organized crime, growing corruption, child abuse, and sexual and other types of exploitation of human beings. In addition, human trafficking is increasingly associated with drug and weapons smuggling. It creates serious security breaches, offering new potential channels for the movement of terrorist and organized crime groups and illegal financial transfers aimed, in particular, at financing various illegal activities, including terrorism.27
The problems of illegal immigration and human trafficking are widely publicized and not infrequently exaggerated by the media, governmental authorities, and political activists. In general, both immigration and emigration represent highly controversial issues causing serious tensions within the receiving societies. Among the most contentious issues in regard to immigration are: 1) fears of the erosion of local cultures and ethnic and religious unity in receiving societies; 2) the influx of undocumented migrants existing in a legal gray zone; 3) growing pressures on the labor market28 and social welfare services; 4) loss of funds through migrant remittances to their home countries; and 5) proliferation of crime and corruption, as well as national security threats. In regard to emigration, major attention is usually given to: demographic losses related to the departure of young and ambitious people; the outmigration of professional and intellectual elites, and the respective financial losses incurred on their education and training; and the associated drain on countries' educational, research, industrial, and military
25 Among them, Bolivians comprise 40%; Chinese, 13%; Peruvians, 11%; and the citizens of Paraguay, 10% (Lyulko 2011; Coelho 2013).
26 Peberdy and Crash 2007, 181.
27 It should be noted that the phenomena of illegal migration and human trafficking, encountered currently by BRICS countries, have long become realities of the modern world. At least one in two people entering the US and Western Europe is doing so in violation of existing laws and regulations. Crime groups involved in human trafficking make between $10 and $12 billion annually (Ghosh 2007, 98).
28 In South Africa, for instance, the share of foreign workers in the country’s mining industry has increased from 40% in the late 1980s to 60% in the mid-2000s (Peberdy and Crash 2007, 179).
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potential. Under crisis conditions, immigration, especially illegal immigration, can act as an important destabilizing factor triggering ethnic tensions and even violent riots. A number of such events took place in South Africa, especially in May 2008, with violence directed primarily against migrants from Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, and, on a much smaller scale, in Russia.
Thus there exist both common migration challenges and a potentially high degree of compatibility of BRICS labor markets. No less important are the external aspects of migration policy: immigration from neighboring states can serve for most of the BRICS countries as a very important means of stabilizing the socio-economic situation on their borders through such mechanisms as migrant remittances,29 the lowering of demographic, social services, and labor market pressures in the home states, the offering of education and professional skills to the migrants from these states, and a major “soft power” political tool.30 This latter function should be based on educating as well as indoctrinating incoming migrants, offering them new skills and making them agents of the receiving states' economic, political, and cultural influence in their home countries.
The existence of the aforementioned similarities and challenges opens the doors for a thorough discussion of available policy options and creates the potential for future cooperation in the migration sphere, including the formation of a system regulating various types of legal labor (highly skilled, educational, and low skilled) migration flows within BRICS as well as the formulation of common policies in regard to migration exchange with third countries, a practice that has already become typical for many integrative groupings. One characteristic example in this sense is the policy of the European Union, which has created two drastically different migration regimes: a prohibitive Fortress Europe for external immigration and a liberal Europe without Borders for internal migration within the Schenghen Zone.
Migration and Technological Cooperation and Development
Another worldwide trend is the formation of a global and highly competitive qualified labor market, with BRICS states being its very important participants, at least for now primarily as suppliers of skilled migrants. In general, the field of science and technology offers significant opportunities for international and regional organizations to set up international agendas. These areas are highly integrated with issues of skilled, educational, and, to some extent, investment-based migration.
29 Transfers from Russia, for example, account for approximately 60% of all migrants’ transfers received by the CIS countries (Vishnevskii 2006, 347-8).
30 “Soft power” is defined by Joseph Nye as one's ability to “get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies...[and thus] rests on the ability to shape the preferences of the others.” (Nye 2004, x, 5).
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For a long time, the developed countries of the Global North held the dominant position in this process. The US and the United Kingdom alone generate more than $20 billion annually through international students’ tuition and living expenses.31 Relying on the LIEO model, strictly controlling the transfer of modern technology through such mechanisms as TRIPS, and aggressively recruiting intellectual elites worldwide, the Global North has protected its monopolistic position in this sphere.32 In 2005, between one-third and one-half of the developing world’s science and technology personnel lived and worked in the OECD countries (Faist 2010, 69).
Meanwhile, the expansion of university education, along with the digital revolution, create new opportunities for the newly emergent powers. These countries and their organizations are becoming a new source of international actors and agendas able to challenge the western academic and technological hegemony. BRICS countries play an important role in this process. For example, while the number of Russian students in the West remains relatively low (it is currently estimated at between 35,000 and 50,000, compared to the overall figure of more than three million students studying abroad worldwide, i. e. about 1.5 percent of the overall international student body),33 the RF is becoming an important provider of educational services to international students: their number reached 123,515 in the 2010-11 academic year, compared to 95,781 in 2007-08 and 67,025 in 1995-96.34 China, in turn, has managed to drastically increase the number of the foreign students studying in the country from 80,000 to 330,000 just in the past decade.35 This is one of the areas
31 “From Brain Drain to Brain Gain.” 2014. Russia Direct Quarterly Report 5, 6. In the US in 2008-2009, education funding for over two-thirds of the 671,000 international students was financed primarily by students’ “personal and family” sources, while US sources supported just 24.4 percent of students (Institute of International Education. 2009. “Open Doors 2009: Report of International Educational Exchange.” Washington, DC: Institute of International Education).
32 Currently, six out of ten innovators migrating worldwide are moving to the United States, while the number of innovators moving there for permanent settlement is fifteen times higher than those moving out. In India’s case, 80 percent of its migrating knowledge workers, primarily IT professionals, are moving to the US. Among the leaders in terms of the number of emigrating innovators, India ranks first, China second, and Russia seventh. And at the same time, India, Russia, and Brazil still show a nearly zero inflow of innovators (“Inventor Data for Research on Migration and Innovation: A Survey and a Pilot.” 2014. Economic Research Working Paper No. 17. World Intellectual Property Organization Economics and Statistics Series; “From Brain Drain to Brain Gain.” 2014. Russia Direct Quarterly Report 5, 7; Khadria 2010, 178).
33 Of those, 17 percent went to the universities in the United States (“Summing up international student mobility in 2014.” ICEF Monitor)
34 Federal’naia Sluzhba Gosudarstvennoi Statistiki. 2011. Rossiia v Tsifrakh 2011 [Russia in Figures 2011 ].
35 “From Brain Drain to Brain Gain.” 2014. Russia Direct Quarterly Report 5, 15.
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opening serious prospects for cooperation within BRICS. China, for example, ranks fifth overall and first among states from outside the CIS in terms of the number of foreign students studying at Russian universities (9,055 in 2011), while India, with 4,286 students, ranks respectively seventh and second. Neither state, however, is among the ten largest recipients of Russian students).36
Thus, BRICS cooperation in the fields of technical and higher education, academic development, science, technology and innovation is closely linked to the issues of highly skilled and educational migration. Their promotion will enhance both academic and educational cohesion within the organization and allow for cross-national policy and technological transfer. Under these circumstances, it is important to: 1) provide for the mutual compatibility of educational programs (including online) and the convertibility of the national diplomas within the organization; enhance the academic and educational exchanges within BRICS; 2) stimulate the development of joint research projects in the most advanced academic areas, including aerospace engineering, biotech, chemical engineering, transportation, computer and energy technologies; and 3) create a favorable technological tranfer regime within BRICS, resisting any external attempts to dictate the conditions of such a transfer and technological cooperation to its members.
к к к
While BRICS has yet a long way to go to become an effective mechanism for policy-specific action, current developments, including western sanctions against Russia in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine, indicate that the organization has a significant potential. In particular, it can act as a mechanism allowing the emergent powers to harmonize both their not infrequently competing economic and political objectives and to formulate common policies directed at challenging the long-standing political, economic, and technological monopoly of the West, an outcome that would benefit not only BRICS members, but also the bulk of humankind. Migration represents one of the key areas in which such cooperation is quite possible.
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About the author
Andrei V. Korobkov is Professor of Political Science at Middle Tennessee State University.
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