Counter G7 for Brix – Corriere.it

Xi Jinping
Denouncing: The economic sanctions imposed by the West are equivalent to “the militarization of the global economy”, in addition to being a setback that turns against those who apply them. The Beijing media has relaunched the idea of ​​a global monetary system “free” from the dollar, with alternative payment systems to SWIFT (which is based in Belgium and is effectively controlled by the United States).

Where did the Chinese president say these things? At the BRICS economic summit, which is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The BRICS is a club of emerging powers that like to call themselves, even though China has already, by all intents and purposes, emerged as the second largest economy in the world. Parallel to the BRICS Economic Forum, another China-sponsored conference was held in Addis Ababa About Peace in the Horn of AfricaIn which Xi launched his own plan of aid to that region of the continent destabilized by the Ethiopian Civil War. The West often appears marginal in these grand maneuvers that see Beijing weaving its web into the Southern Hemisphere.

The geography of the BRICS countries Mirror and alternative to those of the G7, Clubs of the old rich countries. Does the acronym BRICS represent, at least possibly at least, the control room for the dismantling of American-centric globalization and its gradual replacement with an alternative international system, whose bases will be located in Beijing, Moscow, Delhi, Brasilia and Pretoria? The history of the BRICS is now over twenty years old, and it is unique and deserves to be remembered. This club, in which Chinese executives are surrounded with great interest, was invented only by an American economist, and then an employee of Goldman Sachs on Wall Street.

The decisive background was December 2001, when China effectively became part of “our world”. It was accepted into the WTO or the World Trade Organization, the place where since 1995 the rules of globalization have been negotiated and decided in principle. As a member of the World Trade Organization, it has opened new markets for China since the end of 2001. Since then, an amazing story of export-based take-off has accelerated. TheChinese miracle It is produced in unprecedented dimensions.
After China, it was India’s turn. Even the “sleeping elephant” wakes up to grow with the liberation remedy (albeit corrected by strong doses of protectionism, even more so than China).

The geography of development is expanding, so is the Goldman Sachs economist, Jim O’Neill Brix was inventedAdding Brazil, Russia and finally South Africa to Scindia. Initially his cliched intent: O’Neill with the Brics wants to offer investors a simple and suggestive label to indicate the new markets in which they are investing in order to take advantage of the opportunities of globalization. It’s a financial marketing gimmick, to put it simply.

Ironically, the Brics born in the Goldman Sachs research office ends in a geopolitical reality: the leaders of those five countries love it so much, that they fit in, and They meet periodically at special summits which excluded the West.

In the following twenty years I was born in emerging countries middle class For over a billion people, a huge market. At the same time, however, the outbreak of authoritarianism strongly belies the optimistic predictions of Clinton and Bill Gates, which O’Neill himself believed, about the inevitable transition to democracy that should have accompanied capitalism.

In the following twenty years, the common aspiration to conquer a “unipolar world” appeared several times in the statements of the heads of state and government of the BRICS countries. How realistic is their closeness? In some cases the harmony was noticeable. Example: In 2011, the BRIC countries adopted a common position, abstaining from voting, on a UN resolution according to which America and its Franco-British allies gave the green light for military intervention in Libya. Here’s a point that the BRICS really have in common: because they have a colonial or neo-colonial past (India and Brazil), or because they feel nostalgic for an age when they can compete for world leadership with the United States (Russia), or finally because they have imperialistic anti-Western ambitions (China) All of them are alienated from the role of the United States. In an earlier case, the fiasco of the Copenhagen Environment Summit (December 2009) had shown that only Cindia’s husband could exercise a massive veto against any American and European ambition to dictate the international agenda.

It was the case of the BRICS Reinforced thanks to the 2008-2009 recession. It was called a “global recession”. Out of mental laziness, or because of our insistence on considering the West the secret of the world. In fact, that crisis was mainly from the West + Japan. China hasn’t gone into a recession, not even for two quarters of months. India as above. Brazil only suffered from it for a while, then got out of it at full speed, finding rapid growth rates thanks to the driving force of Chinese demand for raw materials and foodstuffs. More than ever, after that crisis, global economic geography began to resemble the subtitle of an article by historian Niall Ferguson: “The West and the Rest”.

American economist Dani Rodrik theorized that the BRICS countries were adopting the “globalization of the Bretton Woods model, rather than the newer and more extreme version.” what do you mean by that? The International Conference Preparing the Structure of International Economics for the Post-War Era was held at Bretton Woods in 1944, under the political leadership of Franklin Roosevelt and the theoretical leadership of John Maynard Keynes. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the GATT which was the predecessor of the World Trade Organization were established there. It was an important step in restoring freedom of trade, promoting international trade that would have pulled out many post-war economic “miracles”, from Italian to German and Japanese. But it was partial globalization: currencies were not free to float in chaos, capital movements were subject to restrictions, and borders were gradually opening up. Roderick notices that BRICS countries have a selective approach to globalization, reminds us of the organized world of Bretton Woods. China has been practicing protectionism long before Donald Trump attempted to retaliate; For years it has resisted Western pressures on the monetary front, continuing to keep the renminbi in a bind of incomplete convertibility. India maintained certain restrictions on capital movements, as well as the gradual opening of borders to trade. Brazil applies de facto quotas of the “national labor tax base” to foreign companies wishing to invest in key sectors such as oil and mining. All these governments act in a pragmatic manner: not ideological declarations of war against the West, but a rational calculation of the national interest. Russia and China also share the role of state capitalismEspecially in strategic sectors.

The political and even value differences between the Indian and Brazilian democracies and the authoritarian political regime ruling China are clear. As well as the strategic rivalry between India and China that leads New Delhi to accept US advances in the field of military cooperation. At the current summit, Narendra Modi’s government sent reassurances to the Americans: it would prevent the Indian delegation from signing the BRICS statement that might sound critical of Washington. So the BRICS countries are not ready to become a directorate of global governance. But at the same time it is establishing itself as the world’s club “other than us”, and none of its members adheres to the sanctions imposed on Putin for the aggression against Ukraine.