The term "Global South" — which refers to the vast number of developing countries across the world — has become a global hot topic in recent years. As an international cooperation mechanism comprising countries of the Global South, BRICS now has 10 members following its expansion this year, with another 30 countries having expressed interest in cooperating with the organization, giving it ever-increasing larger global influence. And the 16th BRICS summit will be held in Kazan, Russia, from Oct 22 to 24.
The Brandt Report issued by the Independent Commission on International Developmental Issues in 1980 underscored the drastic differences in the economic development of the Global South and the Global North.
Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore, said the Global South represents 88 percent of the world's population, and those countries are "no longer passive participants on the world stage". And "the coming decade may belong to the Global South".
According to estimates by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, by 2060 the combined GDP of China, India and Indonesia will reach $116.7 trillion, accounting for 49 percent of the global total.
The rise of the Global South has geopolitical reasons. Since the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in 2022, the Global South refused to blindly toe the West's line. Major developing countries, such as Brazil, India, South Africa and Indonesia, have rejected applying the sanctions imposed by the US and its allies on Russia. Their call against double standards and a new Cold War has grown louder.
As Sarang Shidore, director of the South Program at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said, Global South states seek "strategic autonomy", and gain leverage through the "power of denial". According to Shidore, Global South states have realized that "a new Cold War would endanger their interests".
David Miliband, former foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, pointed out that "the preferred Western framing of the war in Ukraine — as a contest between autocracy and democracy — has not resonated well outside Europe and North America".
The US is concerned about its declining influence in the Global South, and there are deeper reasons for this. Matias Spektor, a professor of international relations at Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Brazil, said countries of the Global South have long accused Western countries of being hypocritical in their dealings with developing states, and they find it hard to accept the West-defined "rules-based international order "when the US and its allies themselves breach these rules.
In this backdrop, the Global South has become a new battlefield of China-US competition. The National Security Strategy issued by the Joe Biden administration in 2022 stated the US will not "see the world solely through the prism of strategic competition" and will continue to engage more broadly with countries in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, while meeting the economic and development needs of the US' allies to ensure their autonomy in front of China.
Thanks to rapid development over the past several decades, China has become the world's second-largest economy. At the same time, it is still the world's largest developing country.
Based on World Bank standards, China does not qualify as a high-income country. China's gross national income per capita has not yet crossed the threshold for high-income countries. In 2022, the country's GDP per capita was $12,741, 16.6 percent that of the US.According to the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 2022, China ranked 79th globally in the Human Development Index, roughly on a par with other major developing countries. Therefore, China's status as a developing country is unquestionable. To some extent, China faces the dilemma of being both a global power and a developing country. As Philippe Benoit, an adjunct senior research scholar with Columbia University's Center on Global Energy, said: "China is the world's lone 'hybrid superpower'".
China's status dilemma has become a useful tool for the US. By questioning and undermining China's status as a developing country, the US can create greater obstacles to China's economic growth and alienate it from other developing states. As Michael Schuman, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub, pointed out: "Global South will be one of the great battlefields of the growing China-US competition".
To undermine China's status as a member of the Global South, the US and its allies label China as a member of the "Global East".
According to the "Three Worlds "theory of John Ikenberry, a professor at Princeton University, the world is divided into the Global West, the Global East and the Global South. One is led by the US and Europe, the second by China and Russia, and the third by an amorphous grouping of non-Western developing nations. Ikenberry said it would be a "nightmare coalition" for China if the Global West and the Global South were to align.
The US tries to "divide and rule" the Global South. It supports India's efforts to contend with China for the leadership of the Global South. Suzanne Nossel, a former US deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations, said that the US can win support from Global South countries including India by "jump-starting the long-stalled debate over expanding the UN Security Council "and "by pushing the reform, the US would draw Global South countries closer to the inner circle of international governance", which will force China and Russia to make concessions. In January 2023, India hosted the Voice of Global South Summit, which gathered more than 120 developing countries, and China was not invited to the event.
In addition, the US has been bolstering its relations with the Global South in areas such as energy transition, public health, food security and infrastructure, with particular attention paid to forging closer ties with "swing states" which have rich natural resources, geostrategic importance, and vast market potential, such as Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The US has boosted its influence in the Global South through initiatives such as Minerals Security Partnership, Just Energy Transition Partnership, Roadmap for Global Food Security and Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation. Relying on the strength of its allies and platforms such as the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, the US aims to deepen its relationship with developing countries to counterbalance the influence of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative. But the US faces multiple constraints in implementing its Global South strategy, such as polarized domestic politics, inconsistent policies, limited resources, and divergent interests with its allies.
Good relations with other developing countries are crucial to China's global diplomacy and underpin its long-term competition with the US.Given the differences among developing countries and the challenges they face, it is a daunting task to maintain "Southern Solidarity". China should use cooperation mechanisms and initiatives such as the BRI and the Global Development Initiative to further coordinate with other Global South countries and jointly ensure that development is at the top of the global governance agenda.

This article first appeared in China Daily Global on 22 October 2024