For those who love symbolism, the Brics summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, this week will be a banner occasion, a remarkable demonstration of how the global political order is changing.

Five significant developing nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will try to flesh out a multilateral development agenda free from the oversight of the US. They are expected to set up a Brics development bank that will be seen by many as an attempt to undercut the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, both created under Pax Americana. Accentuating this sense of an alternative order, there will be numerous meetings between leaders who nurse varying degrees of antipathy towards Washington.

However, for those seeking hard evidence of what this summit signifies, it may be a damp squib. The five countries share little beyond subscription to a marketing acronym dreamt up by Goldman Sachs. Unlike many multilateral groupings, they are geographically far-flung, depriving them of the relevance of contiguity. They vary vastly in size and heft – China’s economy is 24-times larger than South Africa’s – suggesting that attempts at equality in power sharing could be a struggle.