Euro-centralism facing growing challenge in global South

November 11, 2015, 8:04 pm

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye (front 2nd R) talks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (front 3rd L) during a meeting at the presidential Blue House in Seoul on October 31, 2015. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in South Korea October 31 ahead of a trilateral Northeast Asian leadership summit that Beijing hopes will improve trade links and help bolster its slowing economy. (AFP)

In the future, we are likely to see more and more forums of the kind we are seeing currently taking place among Japan, China and South Korea, for the defusing of inter-state tensions and the finalizing of the terms of economic engagement. But these powers may need to recognize that growth does not equate development. It is the latter that spells better times for the ordinary people of the South.

Christine Lagarde’s term as IMF chief is fast coming to an end and the question being posed by some international monetary authorities is whether a nominee of the BRICS states would make a bid to obtain the prestigious and powerful position which plays a major role in shaping the economies of the global South. This is just one pointer to the growing importance of the global South, including emerging economies, in running the world economy. The economic clout of the South, currently, is of such proportions that it could no longer be ignored as a key player in global economic management.

The Southern states are by no means strongly united but the recent forum in Seoul featuring South Korea, China and Japan on economic and security issues ought to be an eye-opener for the West and other sections with a stake in the effective administration of the global economy. The forum in question is held periodically but the one under discussion comes amid growing international military tensions in the Asia-Pacific, which is, of course, part of the world’s new economic growth centre.

Even as this is being written, at least one US aircraft carrier is in the South China sea, against the backdrop of efforts by China to intensify its presence in the region through the construction of ‘artificial Islands’ and the initiation of other perceived security measures. These steps are aimed at strengthening China’s foothold in the South China sea and adjacent areas, seen as strategically, and in economic terms, important for Beijing.

It is common knowledge that China is at loggerheads with some of its major neighbours over what it considers are its territorial possessions in the South and East China seas but it and its neighboiurs apparently do not consider these irritants as obstacles to efforts at coming together and showing a united front on the economic front.

It is the economic dimension that is increasingly significant in international relations at present. This is particularly true of the global South which is posing a formidable challenge to the economic clout of the West, which is steadily waning. Over the past few years, the growing economic strength of the South has been a significant feature of the world economy and it is plain to see that Southern economic groupings and multilateral organizations are coming close to displacing West-dominated global financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF. Just two of such entities are the China-spearheaded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank, launched by the BRICS states. Accordingly, the financial power of the West may soon be a thing of the past.

Significantly, the US and Japan are not members of AIIB but the US very recently launched the Trans Pacific Partnership under its leadership which comprises some of the West’s and Asia-Pacific’s biggest economic powers and this could be the West’s answer, in economic terms, to the principal economic powers of the South.

Given the waning economic importance of the West, it is a South-centered world that is emerging and economic history writing may need to increasingly come to grips with this fact. That is, South-centralism may need to replace Euro-centralism in economic commentary the world over.

To be sure, it is some time since sections of Western scholarship have come to recognize the dominance of Euro-centralism in the worldview of even Western historians and their writings. From roughly the fifteenth century it is the West which has dominated the world in military, economic and political terms and, consequently, Western history writing and commentary on modern times have come to have a West-centric slant. Economic, social, political and military achievements in the modern world have been seen as West-initiated achievements, basically, while the South or the Third World has been seen as being bogged-down in underdevelopment in all its forms, from the earliest times. Based on these premises, the West is being shown as enjoying an intrinsic superiority over the South or East. This, in essence, is Euro-centralism.

However, the few Western scholars referred to above, have put the record straight on this matter and pointed out, with proof, that, from ancient times until the advent of colonialism, it is Asia and Africa that led the world in economic, social and political advancement, although they were overtaken in colonial times by the West, for obvious reasons. One such commentator is Andre Gunder Frank and his work, ‘ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Vistaar Publications, New Delhi) is well worth reading on this score. This tradition in commentary, which has helped in quashing Western stereotypes of the East, began with Edward Said’s famous treatise, ‘Orientalism’, a path-breaking work on Western cultural domination and its effects.

Accordingly, present day Southern economic growth and prosperity, among other things, exposes as being without a basis, Western myths relating to the South’s purported cultural and economic backwardness. It would be right to state, instead, that the South or East is coming to its own as the global economic power house.

However, it cannot be contended that from now on we would be having a monolithic and united South which would be working towards a better economic deal for the lesser economic players in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Tensions among major economic players, in Asia in particular, are likely to continue over scarce and strategic resources, such as oil and gas. The South China sea squabbles, for example, centre on these issues. But the perspective from which world economic history is being written would need to change, recognizing the South as the world’s most important region, not only in economic terms, but in cultural and intellectual terms as well.