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Wang Huiyao
Wang Huiyao

Opinion | How China can step up to its responsibilities in a rising Global South

  • Rise of the Global South brings opportunities for South-South cooperation but also risks of infighting and confrontation
  • China must boost dialogue and cooperation through think tanks and forums, working in particular on ties with India and Brics’ influence, and also North-South cooperation

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Illustration: Craig Stephens
Wang Huiyao
The prominence of this week’s Brics summit, particularly as it discusses the expansion of a bloc that comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to admit more members, reflects the rise of the Global South.
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In February, the Munich Security Conference added a panel discussion on how the Global North can better cooperate with the Global South. At the G7 summit in May, host Japan pushed to strengthen the Group of Seven’s ties with the Global South and especially invited the leaders of several developing countries to the Hiroshima meeting.

“The Global South is becoming more visible – and influential – in every arena,” said Foreign Policy magazine at the start of the year.

While the Voice of Global South Summit, a virtual meeting hosted by India earlier this year, was attended by more than 100 countries, there is no universally accepted definition of which countries exactly comprise the Global South. There are, for instance, Global South countries in the geographic North, and vice versa.

Yet this flexibility reflects the nature of the Global South, a community where states recognise in one another their similar situations. Economically, the community is developing and looking to improve. Politically, it is a multilateral alliance with diversified values and interests.
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Despite the escalation of the Ukraine crisis and global political divisions, most countries have chosen to neither take sides nor join the strategic suppression of Russia. Clearly, Global South countries prefer to keep an independent foreign policy and a non-aligned position.
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