Several recent articles have questioned the validity of the concept of the “Global South” and even call for the retirement of the term altogether. But instead of dismissing the term, it’s important to clarify what the Global South is and is not, and to demonstrate the shortcomings of the most widely used arguments against the concept.
Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden met with his counterparts from the five states of Central Asia in the first-ever leaders’ summit of the so-called C5+1 format. The meeting is a step in the right direction when it comes to U.S. policy toward an increasingly strategic region, but one that Washington has historically neglected.
For Washington and Brussels, the IMEC trade corridor linking India, the Gulf and Europe is an effort to mold the resulting partnerships in line with Western interests. However, for India, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, their participation in the project does not reflect a desire to choose sides amid an era of great power competition.
Despite being in the midst of its rainy season, Panama is experiencing one of its driest periods on record. The lack of rainfall means that the Panama Canal—a vital conduit for global maritime trade—is facing severe challenges, with the implications extending beyond Panama’s borders to affect international trade and global supply chains.
Earlier this year, the global economy experienced an important milestone that, though it went largely unnoticed, scholars may look back on as a marker of the beginning of a new era, with economic but also geopolitical significance: For the first four months of 2023, Mexico surpassed China as the top trade partner of the United States.
In 2021, Xi Jinping called for “Common Prosperity” as a new key goal of Chinese-style modernization. Observers speculated he was launching a populist, left-wing agenda that would spread wealth in China more equitably. But Common Prosperity was never intended to be a Robin Hood-like intervention to take from the rich to help the poor.
Amid the fanfare surrounding BRICS’ expansion last month, the longstanding tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia over the latter’s mega-dam project on the Nile went largely unnoticed. In offering both countries membership, BRICS has absorbed a complex regional conflict, raising questions over its potential to shape global affairs.
The first Africa Climate Summit concluded with significant momentum for the continent’s approach to climate diplomacy. For many observers, though, these achievements were overshadowed by concerns over the endorsement of market-based schemes like carbon credits as a way out of the continent’s climate finance quandary.
Ahead of next week’s SDG Summit, the outlook for realizing the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is discouraging. Recent cascading crises threaten to reverse the progress made on several goals. They have also exacerbated one of the most significant challenges to realizing the SDGs: financing gaps.
With China’s economy slowing rapidly, many analysts around the world worry that a continued contraction in Chinese growth could potentially have an adverse global impact. Without China acting as the global engine of growth, they say, growth around the world could stall. But the story is more complicated than that.
Even as regular climate diplomacy has resumed between the U.S. and China, officials and observers of both countries have become markedly more pessimistic about the feasibility of carving out a separate lane for climate progress amid rising tensions. That may imperil our chances of a timely energy transition.
The debate over how to reduce the risk of nuclear catastrophe focuses on nuclear weapons as a Doomsday threat. That impedes an alternative view of the relationship between the nuclear era and global human security—namely, that peaceful nuclear technology can be a solution to a global security threat: the climate crisis.
At last month’s BRICS summit, the government of Argentina promised to join the organization, which hopes to de-dollarize the global economy. That same week, however, Argentine voters made it clear that come October, they’ll elect a president who opposes joining BRICS and will increase the use of the dollar at home.
One hundred days into his term, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu—who won a disputed presidential contest in February—has mostly lived up to expectations, with few surprises. That might be because, amid a struggling economy and pervasive insecurity, not many Nigerians had high hopes for his presidency to begin with.
The global spread of Italian food and wine as well as the popularity of Italy as a tourism destination—alongside the depiction of all three in popular culture—have helped establish the country as a “soft superpower.” Now a force largely outside of Rome’s control is threatening all three sectors: the climate crisis.
A group of five will soon be a concert of eleven. At last week’s summit of the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa agreed to invite Ethiopia, Argentina, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to officially join the group on Jan. 1, 2024. The expanded BRICS shows its members’ dissatisfaction with the Western-led economic and political order.