A new global order has arrived

Oct 28, 2024
The heads of delegations pose for a family photo prior to Outreach/BRICS Plus format session at the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. Image:AAP/Alexander Nemenov, Pool Photo via AP

When justifying vast increases in defence expenditure, subsidies for so-called critical industries, foreign aid as an increasingly important element in the securitisation of foreign policy, governments and conservative think tanks never tire of telling the public that they live in the most dangerous of times.

It is arguable that the times are any more dangerous than when the world lived under the shadow of thermal nuclear war, where the Cuban missile crisis was once the most combustible flash point between the superpowers, or when Australian troops were dying and being wounded daily in Vietnam in a futile and immoral attempt to defend the US empire in Asia.

What is without doubt, however, is that we are living in one of the most interesting times in world history since the end of the second world war. Then a new world order was created under US leadership, supported by a raft of newly minted international institutions.

That order is now being eclipsed by a new multipolar order at probably a greater rate than anyone could have imagined a decade ago. Two events last week highlight that change.

The BRICS Summit hosted by Vladimir Putin opened this week in the Russian city of Kazan. The choice of Kazan is highly symbolic. It is bullseye in the heart of Eurasia from where the new global order is emerging.

After having substantially expanded it membership at last year’s meeting in South Africa, Putin’s summit will be attended by the largest number of heads of state to attend a BRICS Summit.

Far from being the international pariah shunned by the rest of the world for his illegal invasion of Ukraine, Putin will be able to show that he retains considerable international standing and influence. Apart from whatever else the BRICS discuss, this will be the headline globally and a vital message for Putin to the Russian people.

Putin’s great friends, Narendra Modi, who made a point of making Moscow his first destination after his re-election, and Xi Jinping, whom Putin will be meeting for the 43rd time since Xi’s elevation to President in 2012, will both be there.

Among the many issues that will be discussed, for these three the single most important issue will be ‘de-dollarisation’. Dispensing with the US dollar as the global reserve currency has been a long-standing Chinese objective.

From the early 2000s, China has persistently pushed the RMB as an alternative to the US dollar. This was given massive impetus following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as Russia’s trade and investment has been diverted from the West.

One of the attractions of the BRICS for members and aspirants is that they now see themselves as potentially vulnerable to US-led financial sanctions. The heightened economic coercion applied to Russia since 2022 has only strengthened concerns about strategic vulnerability. China, however, had long been of the view that US dominance of the global financial system was a systemic threat to its security.

While it has become common place for lazy thinking among some in the media and think tanks to attribute all of China’s actions of which we disapprove to the evil genius of Xi Jinping, in fact many of these initiatives to recast the international order, including more assertiveness in the South China Sea, predate his ascendancy.

It goes to the heart of how the Communist Party of China views national security. It is not the whim of one man.

Reporting on BRICS summits in the west tends to be off-handedly dismissive, if covered at all. As the BRICS grows, its coherence, such as it is now, will inevitably diminish; but arguably these days its meetings are about as effective as G20 meetings. What is significant, however, is the band wagoning the BRICS has achieved recently, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine damages G20 coherence.

It is not expected that the BRICS will accept new members from among the 30 or so countries that have now applied to join as it digests the expansion that occurred in January this year. It is significant that NATO member Turkey has applied, and President Erdogan will attend. ASEAN members Malaysia and Thailand have also applied to join the BRICS, seeing no contradiction between their membership of both organisations.

Many of the 23 heads of state who accepted Putin’s invitation to attend would have come under intense lobbying from the US not to do so. The meeting shows that US-led efforts to isolate Putin are only partially working, and consequently highlight its waning influence globally.

As a curtain raiser for the BRICS, India and China, in somewhat ambiguous terms, have announced a ‘resolution’ of issues around patrolling the Actual Line of Control in the Himalaya. In 2020, clashes erupted in the area around Lake Pangong. If Modi and Xi have a bilateral in Kazan, this will be of particular interest.

When the clashes occurred, the West immediately bought India’s narrative that it was all beastly Chinese aggression. With dark foreboding, the drums of war involving a wider conflagration were predictably thumped. Instead, for the past four years, the disputed border has largely been incident free, although relations between Delhi and Beijing have been exceptionally frosty.

Whatever the circumstances of the 2020 clashes, India and China have been managing tensions along the disputed border areas for over sixty years without escalation into a large-scale conflict. It is unlikely to do so now. India and China’s relationship may grow closer again as a result.

The importance this week of the BRICS meeting, and especially the circumstances under which it is meeting, and some sort of accommodation having been reached between India and China over their border, draw attention again, alongside the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, and Russia’s persistence in eastern Ukraine, of the US’ diminishing global influence.

This doesn’t necessarily make the world a more dangerous place. But it is more interesting.

Republished from the AFR, 25 October, 2024

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