The term “Global South” is all the rage in new foreign relations. Not a day goes by that it doesn’t appear in one policy document or another, in media commentary, or in reports from think tanks around the world.
Some see the Global South as a buzz call for what was once called the “Third World,” a term believed to have been coined in 1952 by French demographer and economist Alfred Sauvy. In this Cold War theory, the global division between the capitalist First World, led by the United States, and the Socialist Second World, whose center is Moscow. The “Third World” is an undifferentiated mass of countries that remain on the margins of these two blocs.
In this formulation, a city-state like Singapore and a continent-sized country like Brazil were described as “third world” countries. Moreover, two major Asian countries do not fit this exact description: the Sino-Soviet ideological split occurred in the early 1960s, while India was on the fringes of the Cold War blocs, as a result of a “non-aligned” foreign policy.
The term “South” is commonplace following the 1981 Brandt Commission report, which sought to move beyond the East-West dichotomy by examining global upheavals on a North-South axis. The commission, headed by former West German chancellor and Nobel laureate Willy Brandt, recommended that “North” and “South” were broadly synonymous with “rich” and “poor,” “developed” and “developing” countries. With the end of the Cold War, the “Second World” disappeared from the political lexicon and the “Second World. “”Third World” is also a redundant concept.
A lot has changed since then. The Global South has gained importance and Western dominance over Asia, Africa, and Latin America has declined. As the West retreats, teams like the BRICS countries have a larger global footprint. China remains a vital member of the group, providing options for geopolitical and economic perspectives to counter Western hegemony rooted in the foreign monetary formula through institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The creation in 2014 of the new BRICS Development Bank as an alternative to the Bretton Woods institutions has aroused the interest of many countries of the South. Some have advocated the creation of a “new Bretton Woods” to deal with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and expand a sustainable and choice-ridden post-COVID global economic order.
At the 2023 BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, six new countries were admitted: Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, and Argentina (although Argentina will later not join). Indonesia and Turkey are also interested in joining. .
Beyond the BRICS, in other forums, the Global South is getting more attention. India used its presidency of the G20 in 2023 to repair its credibility as an eloquent voice of the Global South. A virtual summit, “The Voice of the South”, held in January last year, brought together representatives from 125 countries. Giving new impetus to amplifying the voice of the South, India ensured that the African Union was a full member of the G20 at the September summit last year in New Delhi.
Over the past two decades, the intra-South expansion of aid, investment, and economic cooperation has demonstrated the limits of the Western model of progression, especially since China has shared its successful poverty alleviation reports with other parts of the South along the Belt. and Côte d’Ivoire. Road Initiative.
As the largest aid provider, China has also been instrumental in triggering the structural transformation taking place in many areas of the South, as part of the expansion of assistance for progress and South-South cooperation. In addition, India introduced a “digital India” program in 2015, and the country has witnessed a virtual revolution that is now being exported to other parts of the Global South.
These transformational adjustments spark optimism to reimagine the South not as the country of what one commentator described as “blows and earthquakes,” but as a position of physically powerful economic progress and poverty reduction.
He is Professor of International Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University.