The term “global south” has come under sharp focus in recent months. There are calls for its dissolution, with arguments against it including the lack of depth and diversity of the world it purports to represent, its geographical inconsistencies as well as a lack of political and social cohesiveness.
While these are valid questions, they do not represent what the global south connotes for its enthusiasts. There cannot be a global south without a global north and the fact that these calls emanate from the “north”, with a lack of approval from the “south”, suggests the objection has more to do with northern concerns rather than those of the south. The calls have largely been ignored in the global south, exposing a conceptual divide that is conveniently missing from the debate — the China factor.
The rapid rise of China and its growing influence globally has proven disruptive to the established Western-led liberal order that accorded privileges to the global north and instituted a core-periphery set-up of global governance that sustained domination of the “north” over the “south”. Therefore, these terms derived meaning based on the identities constructed out of their lived meaning. Both terms essentially describe the political and economic divisions they represent.
The rise of China ... has intensified calls for global reforms to represent the new realities
These identities were not only constructed but pre-determined from the onset. Carl Ogelsby, the US writer who coined the term at the height of the Vietnam War, observed that the north’s “domination over the global south has produced an intolerable social order”.
To lend credence, the term came in place of another disapproving term, “Third World”, where Western analysts conceived the world as a hierarchy that had the US and its Western allies belonging to the “First World”, the Soviet Union and its satellite states to the “Second World” and the rest belonging to the “Third World”.
It us upon this basis that the concept of the global south began to converge around a common identity shaped by a history of imperialism, lack of access to international capital and subdued voices in global governance.
As a result, the concept global south was consolidated around the idea of a powerful global north and a resistant global south. It has since become synonymous with calls for global reforms. In the 1970s, it was about reforming the international economic order; today, it is about wholesome reforms that include calls for global justice and anti-hegemony.
This identity has its roots in the Bandung conference where Afro-Asian solidarity was the key agenda with the inclusion of the Middle East. The delegates expressed dissatisfaction with what they regarded as Western powers’ reluctance to consult them on global governance, concern over tensions between the People’s Republic of China and the US and their desire to lay firmer foundations for China’s peaceful relations with themselves and the West; and their opposition to colonialism.
It culminated in the incorporation of the five principles of peaceful co-existence advanced by China’s Zhou Enlai and India’s Jawaharlal Nehru. They include mutual respect for other nations’ territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.
The rise of China among other emerging powers associated with the global south, such as India, Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey, has intensified calls for global reforms to represent the new realities and their prominent roles in contemporary geopolitics.
From the onset, China and India’s association with the interests of the global south was prominent despite subtle rivalry and ideological differences. The establishment of Brics and its expansion to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates presents a formidable association that has relatively curtailed the north’s dominance and influence in global south politics.
Despite the “Bandung spirit” being behind the global south solidarity, the identity construction cannot be disassociated from China’s rise, influence, and the current polarisation of geopolitics.
The prospects of a multipolar world increasingly being driven by China in the face of escalating geopolitical rivalry between the US and China and the zero-sum mentality in the ensuing competition means that China’s gains from the concept of the global south and south-south co-operation are perceived as losses by the global north. It deflects attention from countries’ independent desire to overhaul unjust structures of the global economy through identities formed through subjugation and discrimination.
Rather than retire the term global south, it is imperative to consider dismantling the north-south distinctions and converge around universal goals that will render China and the “global south” inconsequential.
• David Monyae and Cliff Mboya are director and postdoctoral fellow respectively at the Centre for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg
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