A south-south opportunity emerges in global power shift

A tectonic power shift in the global arena is an emerging phenomenon that is no longer in doubt. Why, and to what end, this profound power shift in the international system is taking place at this time, however, remains a matter of dispute.

The whole process is likely to take at least another two decades to unfold, and its eventual results may be murky, disorderly, volatile and unstable. Yet one consequence is likely to be a power shift from the northern to the southern hemisphere, from the affluent and established Western countries to a wide variety of developing economies which used to comprise the "third world".

This likelihood provides unprecedented opportunities for up-and-coming economies of the south to cooperate and play a greater role in determining the shape and form of the international system in the years to come. At the Crans Montana Forum in Morocco's seaside town of Dakhla last March and at the Asian-African conference in Jakarta last week, the logic and realm of possibilities for south-south assertion in international affairs were evident.

Next year marks the Crans Montana Forum's three decades in operation. The Swiss NGO has sought to advance the agenda and priorities of developing countries of the south. At Dakhla, the focus was on bringing together and harnessing regional resources of Africa for Africans in a south-south spirit, including the roles of southern countries in other regions.

Africa is a mixed continent of 1.1 billion people, beset by all sorts of challenges — from internal conflicts and civil strife to pandemics and Islamist terrorism. But it is broadly making steady strides in expanding areas of growth and development. Notwithstanding perilous pockets of violent internal conflict and outright warfare, the continent is in a better shape than it has ever been. The IMF even saw fit last year to co-organise an international "Africa Rising" conference, showcasing the continent's vast economic potential, relative social development and political liberalisation gains.

The Crans Montana Forum and many other pro-south NGOs, such as Focus on the Global South in Southeast Asia, have been instrumental in highlighting and pressing the agenda of developing countries. At the same time, many governments of the south are also intent on setting the global agenda in their own way.

The Asian-African conference, organised by the Indonesian government and spearheaded by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, is a prime example of countries in the southern cone coming into their own. With 109 nations sending senior leaders to attend, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Asia-Africa gathering rang of nostalgia, because it marked the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference, which Indonesia's then-President Sukarno hosted in 1955.

At that time, Bandung represented a sea change for the less-developed countries of Asia and Africa. It was the first time they came together from two of the world's most populous continents, most of them poor and newly independent from colonial rule. Apart from Sukarno, Bandung featured Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser, India's Jawaharlal Nehru, Yugoslavia's Josip Tito and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah — all recognised as leaders of the post-colonial world. In addition, China's Zhou Enlai, Cambodia's Norodom Sihanouk, Burma's U Nu and U Thant and Thailand's then-foreign minister Prince Wan Waithayakorn also joined the Bandung forum.

All of these leaders from "third world" countries wanted to chart their own course of development and progress in the face of the bipolar Cold War between the US-led West and the Soviet-led East. Back then, "east" meant the Soviet Union and its client regimes in Eastern Europe. Taking sides between these two Cold War titans was unavoidable.

Countries that carved out their own paths, such as Burma's inwardly socialist experiment and India's insularity, suffered from not being able to integrate with the expanding global economy.

For Thailand, Bandung was a second thought on neutrality. In 1954 prior to Bandung, Thailand had already signed on to the US-led Manila Pact, which spawned the anti-communist Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation. Bangkok took sides because it had to, as communism expanded into Indochina just six years after the communist People's Republic of China became triumphant. All things being equal, Thailand would have liked to have taken a neutral path but that choice was not available if it was to thwart the threat of communist expansionism.

The Bandung spirit of independence and third-world camaraderie, in turn, led to the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961. NAM now has 120 members, many of which attended the Asia-Africa conference in Jakarta. The Bandung spirit of non-alignment has been partly reincarnated into south-south cooperation. Without the Cold War, the Bandung participant countries now have a second chance to see the world as they wish it to be, not lorded over by America and Europe.

Asian voices and African aspirations have never counted this much in the international system. Rising Asia and Africa do not necessarily mean an inexorable decline of the West. And Asia and Africa are still full of the same problems that plagued them in the past — government mismanagement, corruption, human rights violations and so on. But there has never been a better opportunity for developing nations of these two continents, that make up more than two thirds of the world's population, to come together and connect in collaboration with the "first world" to cultivate peace and prosperity and mould the future of things to come in international life.

---

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.