Last month, Thailand submitted a membership request, while Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in an interview with Chinese news portal Guancha that his country would soon begin formal procedures.

Last year, BRICS — an acronym that was originally used to refer to Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — decided to expand its membership, inviting Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join the bloc.

Last month, Thai Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa insisted that Bangkok did not view joining BRICS as an act of “choosing sides,” or as a way to counterbalance any other bloc.

In Malaysia, public sentiment is currently more in favor of China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States, according to a recent survey by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singaporean think tank.

In June, during the three-day visit of Chinese Premier Li Qiang to Malaysia, Anwar criticized “the incessant propaganda that we should cast aspersions and fear the dominance of China economically, militarily, technologically.”

In May, Pham Thu Hang, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told a press briefing in Hanoi that “like many countries around the world, we are closely monitoring the process of BRICS membership expansion.”

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