NAM, G77+China and global responses to unilateralism
WHEN the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the privileged Global North and their multinational pharmaceutical corporations resorted to vaccine nationalism and hoarding, to the detriment and disadvantage of the Global South in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and G77+China blocs.
Besides vaccine nationalism, the flow of technological and scientific innovations to the perceived weaker states in the south has not been based on the desire for equality, humanity and shared aspirations.
Examples abound where the Global South survives based on a scale of inequality because of either lack of means and absence of great will and investments in science and technology.
What it points to is that the global political, economic and social ecosystem is structured to favour the North. The exploitation of the Global South is best explained by Immanuel Wallerstein’s world systems perspective in which the developmentally poor yet resource rich countries are destined to remain in the periphery while exploited by those in the core and semi-periphery.
New global dynamics What the modern man needs to understand is that the quest to democratise, liberalise and justly redistribute global power remains a tough assignment. However, oppressed people will not remain oppressed forever.
This is why the global political, social and economic order is shifting quickly. In the past decade, relations have emerged and new alliances have been established while old ones are being restructured to fit the new situation.
Academics and public intellectuals are indicating on the inevitability of the waning influence of the West.
In cutting-edge insights from his book Destined for War, Graham Allison points out that China as a rising power is now economically and technologically better than the US hence there are great pathways that it will be a world power.
In 1980, for instance, nine out of 10 Chinese were considered poor, compared to 2020 where one out of 10
Chinese is living under the poverty datum line.
Comparative statistics by the IMF and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on the weight of the US and China’s economies based on purchasing power parity (PPP) gives an obvious painful conclusion for the former.
In 2004, the US’ PPP was US$12 billion compared to China’s US$5 billion; in 2014 it was US$17 billion for the US and US$18 billion for China.
By the end of this year, the two organisations project that China’s economic weight based on PPP will be $35 billion against the US’ $25 billion.
China continues to serve as the primary engine of global economic growth, which in turn influences some desired global changes in the political, social, military and technological spheres.
In the wake of these developments, nations are beginning to realign their interests. These expected changes, if ever they are to be midwifed, they are not going to happen overnight.
Believing so would be either naïve or simplistic because this is a marathon where those that endure can get to the finishing line.
Advantage NAM, G77+China
Key questions have been asked regarding the relevance of NAM since its formation in 1955.
Back then, its objective was to keep newly independent and developing countries neutral in the context of the Cold War.
At the end of the Cold War in 1991 expectations have been that the 121 member organisation reorganise priorities in a world that has new challenges including terrorism, climate change, intra-state wars and weapons proliferation.
In the face of modern global challenges, it appears states are facing deep challenges if they try to be non-aligned.
The G77+China has a membership of 134 sovereign states.
It is the main negotiating bloc of developing countries in the United Nations. The G77 is called such because it was formed in 1964 by 77 members that were part of the NAM.
The 1960s was the peak of decolonisation and thus sought to lead the fight against colonialism.
When combined, countries from these two blocs represent over 80 percent of the world’s population, and at their recent summits in Uganda they called for their voice to be heard on the international stage. For a long time, the voice of the global South has been drowned by the North.
To be heard, the global South countries are now in open rebellion against the global financial system they say is unjust, unfair and neo-colonial hence demanding a just new world order premised on equality, shared aspirations and social justice.
NAM and the G77+China can help achieve this!
This rebellion is in many regions of the world, like West Africa were former French colonies are complaining about France.
In Latin America, the countries in that region are rebelling against the US’s Monroe Doctrine, arguing they are no longer the backyard of US dominion.
Colonial versus Anti-colonial Each time the global South countries have come up with initiatives for justice, the global North has always been against that.
Colonial powers had to respond to the G77 through establishing in the 1970s what became known as the Group of Seven (G7) countries that counterweighted the anticolonial movement. The G7 was a colonial response to the G77’s anti-colonial stance.
So today the G77+China remains a group that is defending its interests against the G7 countries that built their fortunes through subjugation, force and brutality. It is not an exaggeration to say the G7 is a colonial congregation.
That is why the NAM and G77+China summits in Uganda are important.
The three key pillars When the global South wins, humanity wins. Such a victory will mean that the unfolding Israeli genocide against Palestinians will stop. It means justice, equality, the equitable redistribution of global public goods and peace become achieved as priorities.
It also means the developing nations will be able to own, control and distribute their resources without being forced or bullied on whom they sell to.
Politically, scales of power are pointing that soon a global giant will emerge from the South, and that points to China. China is neither a colonial nor militaristic conqueror. It is leading the path to equality only by enhancing a cultural osmosis without universalising its values like the US.
While it is significant to note that China is a major global competitor, the race is still there to be won for the South. Some already think that the US dollar is going to be worthless soon. Such reactions mean that there is progress that is being seen out of the coming together of global South countries.
Advisedly, the dollar is, however not going to be worthless nor will its value go to zero anytime soon because historically Britain experienced a very similar situation when the US became a global power.
The British pound did not become worthless and has not lost its purchasing power over the last century. That the dollar is losing strength and other major competing currencies are gaining strength is more accurate to say.
So for NAM, G77+China and the rest of the developing nations to be forceful, they need also to be organised on three pillars considered to be major elements to change a global power or situation, that is, the economy, the government and the military or security. For the global South to be successful power, these three elements are key and should work together.
Towards multipolarity and pluripolarity, there are hindrances to be anticipated.
These show that the West is scared. Whenever global South meetings occur, global North media rarely give coverage to these occasions.
In last September’s G77+China meeting in Cuba, western media rather paid more attention to the G20 Summit that had happened a week earlier in India, a summit that China and Russia’s presidents did not attend, giving the US an impression of registering “a global victory” on an international stage.
That is the nature of neoliberalism, to starve people of realities and programme them that no one is better than the West.