'Economic Epicenter' Global South to Challenge West's Neo-Colonialist, Imperialist Policies
© Sputnik / Alexei Danichev
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The global economy is fast shifting towards the East and the Global South with emerging economies like India and other BRICS states registering stupendous growth in recent years.
The Global South, which is emerging as the world's economic epicenter, would challenge the West's neo-colonialist and imperialist policies, geopolitical experts have said.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin underlined that the Global South and the East would drive the planet's economy in the not-so-distant future.
"The challenges we have been facing recently and those objective trends — and this is the most important — that are taking effect in the global economy, when main business connections, trade routes, and the overall trajectory of development are increasingly reorienting toward the East and the Global South," Putin said during his address at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok.
Against this backdrop, Niranjan Marjani, a fellow at the Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies based in India's western state of Gujarat, agreed with Putin's statement, emphasising that the countries in the Global South or Indo-Pacific as India calls the region will play a major role in driving the world's economy.
According to him, there are several aspects to this development - these countries have natural resources, are involved in technical innovations, and also have human resources.
Marjani noted that for instance, both India and Russia have been working to transform the Global South into a powerful economic force, mainly through forums such as the BRICS.
"New Delhi and Moscow are the two major economies in BRICS and their partnership made the expansion of the grouping possible, leading to the induction of newer countries into the bloc. It means that the appeal of BRICS is increasing and going beyond its primary members as nations from the Middle East and Africa, including Egypt, Iran, UAE, and Ethiopia have joined the multilateral organisation. Notably, all these states belong to the Global South," the strategic affairs pundit observed.
Interestingly, the Eastern Economic Forum is being held at Vladivostok and Vladivostok is the place that is central to the Russia-India economic cooperation, he reckoned.
"After all, the two countries are engaged in developing the Chennai-Vladivostok maritime corridor, which would benefit not just India and Russia but also it would offer economic advantages to nations that fall in the region," Marjani stated.
Meanwhile, Professor Anuradha Chenoy, a former dean of the School of International Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi called Putin's assessment as accurate.
She mentioned that if one sees the global economy and trends in individual countries, the high growth rates that have been sustained by most of the emerging economies, are part of BRICS. Besides BRICS, states like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam amongst others have very high growth rates and are also trading with each other in their national currencies.
"However, there is inequality in the Global South as some countries remain poor because of a debt trap. A lot of it is because of neo-colonialist and imperialist policies where many extractive kinds of industries are exploiting the region's vast mineral resources, benefitting the Global North in the process," Chenoy expressed.
While trade and development are increasing in the Global South and the East as President Putin has pointed out, the overall levers of the international economic financial system are still held by the West or the Global North, the former academic opined.
That's why, for the entire system to change, the Global South will have to have more leverage in the financial sectors like the SWIFT payment gateway, bonds, strategic reserves, etc, she highlighted.
Chenoy asserted that the Russia-India model of trade, cooperation, and bilateral relations was good to emulate.
"The two nations support each other, they do not have conditionalities, they respect each other's views, and if there are any differences, there are joint working groups and commissions. Moreover, the very top leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Putin, talk about these issues," she remarked.
Additionally, India has been very dependent on Russia for crude and defense items and the Eurasian nation now has a surplus of Indian Rupees. In this scenario, Chenoy thinks it will be very good if they work out a mechanism for joint investments.
If the third countries are willing to take these joint Indian and Russian investments, it would be a win-win situation for both India and Russia because both of them oppose the terrible Western economic sanctions, she explained.
"Though I acknowledge that navigating these sanctions is not easy, I am sure creative ways could be found, wherein both India and Russia become investors in development projects in third nations. In a nutshell, I would say that joint ventures, more collaboration, and exports to third nations will be a good way forward," Chenoy concluded.
