Now the world is moving: South challenges the West
With the recent summit in South Africa, the BRICS countries and the South have taken steps to create an alternative to the West.
30.08.2023
Hugo Gaarden
For the first time, the world has a more effective alternative to the West, and it's not just China or authoritarian states, but a wide range of countries with very different social systems, including democracies. They do not form a uniform bloc like NATO, the EU or the loose Western grouping G7. A much stronger group could be G20, which meet at a summit
on 9-10 September in New Delhi.
The group, called BRICS after the initials of the participating countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has China as the main force, as China accounts for 60 per cent of the group's economy, and as China aims to make the group an alternative to the West's G7 group - the leading industrialized nations. The group accounts for a quarter of the world's economy and a third of the population and is larger than the EU.
The new alternative ranges from dictatorships to democracies, and now also includes Muslim countries. Six countries have been invited to the group: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, UAE. The expanded group will comprise almost 40 per cent of the world's population and 37 per cent of the world's economy - measured in purchasing power.
BRICS does not have a formal power. Neither does the G7. But the group will coordinate the efforts of the South and will be an alternative voice to the West's decisions. This will be especially evident in the economy. The countries will reduce the use of the dollar and make it difficult for the US to use the dollar as a sanctioning tool.
The Financial Times has had an excellent series of articles on the global outlook in recent days. One expert mentions three sanctions that have caused outrage in the world outside the West: Sanctions against Iran in 2012, preventing the country from using the Swift payment information system; against Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2214; and the US trade war against China in 2018 - i.e. sanctions before the current sanctions against Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine. These are sanctions that also affect countries in the South. This is the first time they are now turning in droves against the Western financial system.
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