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How China’s economy dwarfs that of other BRICS nations, in 4 charts

From the size of the overall GDP to an individual citizen’s prosperity, here is how BRICS nations stand.

A group photo of BRICS leaders at the 2017 summit. (Wikimedia Commons)

4 min readNew DelhiSep 12, 2026 03:44 PM IST First published on: Sep 11, 2026 at 06:00 AM IST

Over the weekend (September 12 and 13), India will host the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi. BRICS is an informal grouping of 11 major emerging markets and developing countries: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

However, it started out as BRIC — referring to the four countries that initially came together, namely Brazil, Russia, India, and China — on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2006. In 2010, South Africa joined the grouping, and it was renamed BRICS.

The idea was to provide a platform for the concerns of emerging economies of the time and counter the overwhelming domination of the industrialised and developed economies (read: the G7) in international institutions.

This is the 20th year since the grouping began, but curiously enough, there is now a dragon in the room: China. Key economic data shows just how much China dwarfs the rest of the BRICS members.

Typically, economic might is ascertained by the overall size of the economy as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in US dollar terms. Similarly, economic prosperity is measured by GDP per capita, which gives a semblance of how rich an average citizen is in a country.

Overall size of the economy

Even in 2006, China was the largest economy among the five countries after which the grouping is named. Yet, as CHART 1 shows, when taken together — and for the ease of analysis, data for South Africa is taken since 2006 — China’s overall GDP was less than the GDP of the other four members.

Chart 1.

However, such was the pace of increase in China’s economic growth that by the time the inaugural summit meeting happened in 2009, China had overtaken the combined economic size of BRIS (BRICS minus China). Since then, the gap has continued to increase each year. As of 2026, China’s GDP alone is more than double that of the other four combined.

CHART 2 shows the country-specific GDP trajectory. Between 2006 and 2015, India did better than the others and overtook them to become the second-biggest economy within BRICS. However, China’s rise dwarfs all the rest.

Explained | With India as host, here are better goals for BRICS than ‘confronting the West’

Chart 2.

Indeed, as CHART 3 shows, since 2009, China has opened a similarly massive gap even against all the G7 countries (barring the US). While the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 dragged back most other developed countries, China grew fast to become the second-largest economy in the world.

Chart 3.

Prosperity of an average citizen

Even though China was the largest economy within the BRICS in 2006, it was nowhere near the most prosperous. In 2006, an average Russian, Brazilian or South African was anywhere between 3 and 3.5 times richer than an average Chinese.

As CHART 4 shows, two decades later, an average Chinese is richer than a Brazilian and twice as rich as a South African, and is closing the gap with an average Russian. As against an average Indian, an average Chinese was about three times richer in 2006 and is five times richer now.

Chart 4.

Upshot

The central idea behind BRICS in 2006 was to challenge the dominance of the big industrialised economies in how the world was run.

However, China has grown so fast that today it is “the” big industrialised superpower on the planet. In the process, it has dwarfed not just all its BRICS siblings but almost all the erstwhile big economies. Indeed, China has grown so fast that the rest of the world is now finding ways to counterbalance China.

The key question is: Will such an overwhelming economic might not have an imprint on what the grouping decides?

Udit Misra

Udit Misra is Senior Associate Editor at The Indian Express. Misra... Read More