The Global South: New Alignments and Ad Hoc Alliances in a Multipolar World

The Global South is a group of nations of diverse political, economic, and cultural backgrounds, and while they do share some common interests and challenges, unified action seems difficult. What is your take on this?

I think the broader point would be that all nations are having a hard time cooperating and acting as blocks or alliances today because that very approach to diplomacy and that very structural background of international relations is gone. If it were a world like the Cold War or a new Cold War, then states would behave in predictable, alliance-like formations, but almost no states are doing that.

If we hold the West to be the standard of such behavior, and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in particular, then we would not see a great deal of unity, harmony, comity, or coordination. It’s generally speaking the U.S., and then whoever wants to join on a case-by-case basis.

In other words, the global backdrop is that alliances have been replaced by what I call multi-alignment. And multi-alignment is the term that I developed about 20 years ago to describe this world of very opportunistic and self-serving behavior, in which every country sees itself as the center rather than necessarily hewing to rigid alliance formations. Another way to put it is that it is a world of dalliances, not alliances.

So, we see novel formations. It’s not to say that we don’t have cooperation and that we don’t have mutual interest. Of course we do.

You can see that, for example, with the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, consisting of Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.), which of course Japan is a founding member of. You can see it with BRICS (originally an investment concept covering Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa; now a geopolitical grouping that has added Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia).

We call these clubs rather than alliances in international relations theory and international political economy. If we apply that same logic to the Global South, of course those countries are not going to act in a coordinated way, because the broader context is one in which countries don’t do that anymore.

That’s particularly true for the Global South. First, they don’t have anything in common other than being post-colonial countries. They are many different regions of the world: Latin America, Africa, West Asia, the Arab world, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Most of the world is post-colonial, and most of the world is the South. Within the Global South, I tend to look regionally and say, is South America becoming more cohesive, better coordinated, better integrated? Is Africa? Are the Gulf countries?

So, when it comes then to transnational or international multilateral cooperation among countries of the South, you are left with things like BRICS or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO, a regional grouping led by China and Russia for economic and security issues) and things like the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a lender for regional infrastructure projects led by China focused on developing economies).

But note that China is the principal hub of all of those bodies, and is it really part of the Global South? China is a structural superpower in the global system.

Given that background, why do you think that the idea of the Global South is still attracting a lot of attention?

I think terminologically it’s useful because it’s a good way of capturing the dynamic roles, voice, and confidence that many different countries of the South are exhibiting at the same time. You have South Africa’s move to take Israel to the International Court of Justice; Brazil holding its weight in international trade negotiations, including on environmental criteria; and India flexing its muscles in terms of commercial diplomacy across Africa.

But it’s much like the term Islamic World. If we were having this conversation 20 or 22 years ago, we’d be talking about the Islamic World because after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, everything was about the West and the Islamic World. That term faded away. It never really meant anything; two Muslim countries don’t coordinate behavior on anything.

I don’t expect the Global South to amount to much more from a diplomatic standpoint. If it’s going to be the new way in which we talk about the Third World or developing countries, that’s just nomenclature. But I’m very interested in the Global South from the standpoint of seeing which specific states, which specific sub-regions are exhibiting their own confidence, taking things in their own direction, making their own policies and strategies, acquiring more leverage and diplomacy, and negotiations. Those are very important and fascinating issues.

In the post-colonial world, these are countries that by definition have only existed for the past 75 years. The last thing they want is to be subsumed into some architecture that suppresses their freedom and autonomy and sovereignty. They’re coming out of centuries of colonialism, so they don’t want to be a pawn of China’s or to join a new Western alliance, or to be lumped together with others.

They absolutely jealously guard their own independence and freedom. If you look at it from the top down, then all you see is: Are you with the U.S.? Are you with China? Are you East or West? I view the world in the exact opposite way. The answer to the question depends on the behavior of 150 other countries. But to know if China and the U.S. are going to get what they want, you have to look at how everyone else behaves, and they don’t behave as one. That’s what makes the world so interesting.

You talked about BRICS and what we used to call the Third World, but how do you think the Global South differs from those as a concept?

BRICS is a very specific, finite group of nations, founded for a very specific purpose. So, it actually has a lot more meaning and significance than people have traditionally given it. However, in light of the recent BRICS summit (in October 2024, Kazan, Russia), many people have woken up to the seriousness of BRICS. The metric for me is not whether the New York Times or the Financial Times takes it seriously. The metric is, is it doing something?

And clearly, they are doing something, and therefore, they matter. I’m very interested in the role of BRICS, AIIB, SCO, Belt and Road Initiative (an international infrastructure development project launched by China in 2013), RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a free trade agreement signed in 2020 covering ASEAN, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea)—all in Asia primarily—but then also of course Quad and AUKUS (a security agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region).

I’m a big fan of all of these. This is the emergence of new vectors, new corridors of diplomacy and cooperation, again from the bottom up. This is sideways. This is not being forced by the U.S., or by China, or by Europe. This is the flourishing of connectivity, diplomatically, commercially, infrastructurally, financially, and technologically across hundreds of countries.

What do you see as the Global South’s role in the international community?

Psychologically, it has value because countries see each other’s behavior, and they learn from each other. If one country stands up to pressure from the U.S., others learn from that. If one country elects someone who is very technocratic or adopts Bitcoin as a reserve currency, others learn. If one country floats more local currency debt, or rejects Chinese debt for equity swaps, or undertakes a high-speed rail project, others learn.

I live in Singapore; every country in the world comes here to learn how to run their country. This is the most successful post-colonial country in the world. I am affiliated with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, part of the National University of Singapore, and we receive delegations of ministers, mayors, ambassadors, and governors every week from every country in the world. One of the smallest countries in the world teaches every other country in the world how to run a country.

There isn’t one model anymore. Just in terms of lessons, in one of my books, I call this “the next best thing.” The theory of “the next best thing” is that each country, generally speaking, can only aspire to achieve something that is attainable.

So, the model for Afghanistan is not Switzerland. Not by a mile. The model for Mongolia is not Switzerland, it is Kazakhstan. They’re landlocked countries, mildly democratic, coming out of authoritarian Soviet influence or domination. They’re resource-rich economies, sparsely populated, and have harsh climates. They don’t have the luxury of aspiring to be like Denmark or Japan.

Japan is truly the most stable liberal democracy in the world, but it’s unattainable to be like Japan for every other country in the world right now. You can take a lot of investment from Japan, study Japan, be inspired by Japan—but are you going to be Japan? Of course not. And the beauty of the dialogue of the Global South is that they can see from each other who has done those little incremental things that the others can learn from.

Given that there is no truly unified entity, how can the Global South impact the new world order and international rules?

It’s going to be the sum of those various maneuvers: South Africa’s, Nigeria’s, Brazil’s, and India’s. The greater the voice that they each have, the greater the voice that they will collectively have. I don’t see current contemporary multilateral organizations like the United Nations or World Bank suddenly reforming themselves. What will happen instead is that they just won’t be as important anymore. Because these new institutions will form and do things themselves.

How do you see the results of the recent U.S. election impacting the shift to multipolarity?

That shift is well underway; I think it has been going on for more than 20 years. This is probably just going to accelerate that because the countries of the world are going to say: even if you are a friend of the U.S., you can’t rely on the U.S. So that alone is the motivation for countries to chart their own path—as a hedge, a back-up plan. The world is already multipolar and will simply become more multipolar.

But the answer is different if you are India, Ukraine, Iran, or even Mexico. Countries are going to pursue their interests, and if the U.S. is their friend, they’ll want to remain friends no matter who is president. But they’ll also pursue their own interests no matter who is president.

Regarding climate change, do you believe we can adapt our way out of the crisis?

No, to be honest, I am a pessimist. I am a technological optimist in general, but I am a climate pessimist in the sense that I don’t believe that, at a systemic level, enough is being done fast enough. Some places are adaptive, some places are investing in resilience, some places are becoming future-proof. If by “we” you mean Japan, I believe Japan is future-proof and adaptive. I believe Japan is resilient. But if by “we” you mean the Global South, well, the Global South is in big trouble. The Global South is not adaptive. It is not resilient. The Global South is the most stressed from climate change, which is accelerating and disproportionately impacting the Global South. I am hugely concerned about the global “we.”

Moving on to Japan, how do you consider relations between the Global South and Japan?

Japan should not be underestimated as a structural player. It’s obviously one of the largest trading nations in the world, one of the largest investors in the world. It’s a role model in many ways. It’s a major donor of development assistance. It plays a major role in international organizations. If we think about those five or six pillars, they’re just realities of Japan’s global role.

Sometimes, those get underestimated, and I think that’s unfortunate. For example, a lot of people act as if the new Silk Roads and the new trade routes across Eurasia didn’t exist until China’s Belt and Road Initiative 10 years ago. I point out that Europe and Japan have been investing in infrastructure projects across Eurasia for decades. China is amplifying a movement for Eurasian connectivity that’s already existed.

Again, I think more regionally. Japan in Southeast Asia and Japan in India are more important than Japan in the Caribbean or Japan in Africa. So as someone who lives here in this region in Southeast Asia and as someone who follows India, I’m very aware that Japan is a very strong and steady presence and influence across South and Southeast Asia and these are the most important regions to be focused on anyway.

In terms of concrete measures, what sort of things do you think Japan can do to help the Global South grow and prosper?

Trade and investment are always the number one and two things. I should say investment and trade because investment comes before trade. Countries don’t have anything to trade unless they have some investment. Even agriculture requires foreign investment to mechanize, modernize, and connect to global markets. Investment is the way you build bridges and friendships. Trade is generally fungible; if someone doesn’t buy your thing, then someone else will likely buy it.

But investment is less fungible. If you don’t invest somewhere, maybe someone else will not invest there. Therefore, investment is a very important way to build deeper bonds and ties, to drive economic growth, and to have a strong structural relationship with countries. And now is a very dynamic time. There’s a lot of competition for supply chains, for attracting manufacturing and other sectors. I’m a believer that Japan can play a very fundamental role there.

In terms of Japan itself, where the population is decreasing, impacting the economy, how do you see its outlook?

There is a natural reality to Japan’s economic condition. When you are hyper-modern, when you are ageing, when growth is slowed, when labor costs are high, when you’re focused on generational care and you have a weaker currency and so forth, you will have situations like this.

These are all the contributors to Japan’s economic condition. There’s one school of thought that says, this is normal, but at least the Japanese have an amazing quality of life. On the other hand, there are concerns about the future. The population is declining, there isn’t enough broad-based innovation. Other countries are hugely competitive and are eroding Japan’s leadership in many sectors. There is some sense that it’s living on borrowed time. Japan and Germany are really quite similar in that way.

Therefore, unless you constantly nurture and invest in being cutting-edge and innovative, then you will lose that edge. I share that concern. I think the future of Japan will have to be more muscular in terms of having to pick sectors where it really wants to maintain a strong lead and invest a lot and defend that edge. It is clearly committing a larger R&D budget toward AI, semiconductors, and robotics. And it will have to become proactively competitive with export promotion in these areas otherwise they will be dominated by China, if they’re not already dominated by China.

One proposed solution is increased immigration. What is your perspective on that for Japan?

I had a chapter on Japan in my last book, Move: The Forces Uprooting Us (2021), and I thought it was important to point out that, unlike what many people believe, Japan actually has record inward immigration every year (as of the end of 2023, there were 3.41 million registered foreign residents, a record increase of 11 percent over the previous year), which is quite a surprise. Of course, accounts vary as to what degree of integration or assimilation there is, or whether it’s parallel societies. And I think that will evolve. But Japan is inevitably evolving rapidly as a migrant destination. And that’s quite unexpected, but also inevitable.

What kind of influence can JBIC have in terms of the Global South and its role in the wider international community?

One of my passions is promoting infrastructure investment, and we always underestimate how necessary it is, how urgent it is, how transformational it can be. Especially today, in light of climate stress and climate adaptation, investments in alternative and renewable energy, in a stable power supply, in resilient agriculture, water desalination, flood control measures—these are crucial.

And finding a country’s niche in global value chains and investing to help it: What is their value? What is their best opportunity? Is it food processing, manufacturing, renewable energy, or batteries? That really should be central to JBIC’s investment focus worldwide as an agent of building Japanese influence.

Are there specific strategies you would advise it to follow?

This is an issue that I do think one should look at in a top-down way. There is so much competition right now amongst export promotion agencies and foreign investment agencies from India, China, and so forth. I think that Japan has to strategically prioritize its relationships, focusing on India and Southeast Asia. Those are the right geographies to focus on. One of my arguments in Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (2016) is that your weight in the world, your influence in the world, is a function not of your size but of your connectivity. If Japan is not connected, then Japan will not be influential. So JBIC has to be one of the key pillars of Japan’s connectivity to the world.