THE ROVING EYE The BRIC post-Washington consensus
By Pepe Escobar
The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) got together in the
Brazilian capital, Brasilia, on Thursday with a bang. After meeting Chinese
President Hu Jintao, and once again condemning an "asymmetric, dysfunctional
globalization", Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was at his
ebullient best: "A new global economic geography has been born." Well, not
quite. Not yet.
Anyone across the world fed up with Somali pirates in Zegna suits disrupting
global trade is interested in what the BRICs are (potentially) up to. The
world's largest developing countries, bound to be the engine of the global
economy for the next four decades, are essentially up to what then Russian
president Vladimir Putin
outlined in his famous speech in Munich in 2007; forming a new global
consensus. Call it the rise of the periphery (the "Second" and "Third" worlds).
Call it the dawn of the post-Washington consensus.
It's nothing short of ironic that major players in the current global financial
architecture are being forced to acknowledge that the global "economic and
political tectonic plates are shifting". No, that was not Lula, but the George
W Bush-appointed head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick. Zoellick even felt
compelled to deliver the coup de grace to the patronizing concept of "Third
World".
Is the World Bank finally waking up to the real world(s)? The BRICs met in
Brazil roughly one week before the World Bank and International Monetary Fund
annual love fest in Washington. The old order may resent it, but the BRIC voice
is and will continue to be ever more insistent. No wonder; they are shelling
more funds to the IMF, thus they should have more say on where the money is
going. They want an antithesis of Wall Street: transparency. The 2008 financial
crisis - which by no means is over - was unleashed by a Wall Street-biased
financial casino.
Strategic and transparent
The BRICs officially met for the first time in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in June
2009. At the time they delved deep into discussing the global financial crisis
and advanced the possibility of dumping the US dollar as the world's reserve
currency.
Now their common strategy is much more subtle. The leaders in these four
countries know it's still too early to think about a common currency; first
they need a potent unifying ideal. The inevitable outcome will be a common
market, and then a common currency. The euro took 50 years to be born.
So no wonder, at the moment, as China's Foreign Ministry would put it, the mood
is still kind of mellow, with plenty of rhetoric about "South-South
cooperation", "strategic partnerships", "common development" and "common
understanding". But the call for "more transparency" is very substantial; it
will be hammered over and over again at the Americans and Europeans during the
next Group of 20 (G-20) meeting in Canada in June.
Unlike the US, the BRICs' health is sound; no lingering financial crisis,
decent growth rates. All of these countries are regional leaders. Unlike the US
- and the rest of the world has noticed it - they have all preserved a very
privileged role for public investment in their development model.
The BRICs may represent 42% of the world's population, roughly 15% of the
world's gross domestic product, and almost 30% of world trade. But they're not
even constituted as a commercial bloc such as the European Union or Mercosur
trade blocs. At least not yet.
So the road will be long. BRICs are starting by getting their commercial act
together - like setting up closer cooperation between development banks in
Brazil, India and China for an array of partnership projects.
In Brasilia, experts for example discussed the Brazil-Argentina experience of
trading in local currencies, the real and the peso - and not in US dollars. The
next stage, as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has enthusiastically pointed
out, includes multiple cooperation deals on agricultural technology, nuclear
energy, aircraft engineering, space exploration and nanotechnology.
The new world order
BRIC is rife in internal contradictions. China and India are on a collision
course in terms of Asian preeminence. China is not exactly fond of India trying
to get a seat at the UN Security Council. China and India fiercely compete to
get as much oil and gas from Central Asia as possible. Russia is acutely aware
of Chinese expansion in Siberia. India is not exactly fond of Brazil - one of
the world's top food exporters - wanting to slash tariffs on agricultural
products. Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega sounds like a US Treasury
official when he calls for the yuan to be revalued; cheap imports are killing
Brazilian manufacturers as much as it killed America's.
But these internal contradictions pale compared to the BRICs' common agenda of
being very careful not to antagonize Washington. As much as they know that the
new multipolar world cannot have a center - which at the moment is in a
Washington that, with the exception of military hegemony, is largely impotent -
China, for instance, has built an economy battling with Japan to become the
world's second-largest economy by profiting from the current US-centered
system.
The BRICs may complement each other in many aspects (Brazil and China are the
best example; China has toppled the US as Brazil's largest trading partner).
But a key problem is that they cannot speak for the rest of the developing and
undeveloped world - as much as China will keep successfully exporting its
"model" of soft power, belief in multi-polarity, non-political interference,
integrated development and technology transfer.
The world anyway will never become "flat" - this is a silly neo-liberal,
simplistic fantasy. A new global political consensus would have to be
formulated by the United Nations - but not a UN dominated by the US; ideally
this should be under a reformed UN, with an expanded and fully representative
UN Security Council. One thing is certain; entrenched elites in both the US and
Europe (which for all practical purposes is now a midget in the global arena)
will fight the dilution of their power tooth and nail.
BRICs anyway will keep insisting on remaking the global financial architecture
- and that starts with profound reforms at the Bretton Woods institutions. They
will be increasingly more powerful inside the G-20 - and that has already
reduced the Group of Eight to irrelevancy. It's very enlightening to see how
they have evolved their common position on burning issues such as the Iranian
nuclear dossier: once again they have stressed in Brasilia they want dialogue,
not confrontation, sanctions and threats.
So the BRIC name of the game may be evolution - not revolution. But the game
itself is clear; full speed ahead towards the post-Washington consensus.
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