G20 Summit wrap-up on WION, India’s English language global broadcaster
It was a pleasure sharing 10 minutes before the cameras with an unusually perceptive program host and an Indian fellow panelist on WION’s review discussion of the G20 gathering in Delhi at its closing.
In these otherwise grim times, it was an occasion to celebrate the achievements of Indian diplomacy in reconciling the opposing sides of the Collective West and the Global South for the sake of improved global economic management based on consensus. The result was to save the G20 from irrelevance just when a rival board of directors for global governance, BRICS, had emerged at its own summit with an ambitious renewal by expanding its membership and strengthening its activities in peacekeeping as well as financing infrastructure projects in the developing world.
Let me emphasize that in theory these two platforms, the G20 and BRICS can and should develop in parallel. BRICS is the venue for the Global South and its nonaligned friends to consult among themselves and agree goals and strategy without interference from the Collective West acting as spoilers. This is essential because the Global South countries have in common little more than the determination to maintain their sovereignty, defend their national interests and not be bullied by any external blocs. Meanwhile, the G20 is where the sides can meet and attempt to align their respective goals and strategy for the sake of common action.
The overview of the moderator at the very start of the program framed our discussion very well and allowed us to delve more deeply into specific elements of what was agreed at the summit.
It must be emphasized that the behind the scenes negotiations by which the Indian organizers persuaded the United States and its allies in the G7 to abandon their obstructionism sets a template for next year’s G20 summit in Brazil. It is manifestly clear that, as represented by India, the Global South rejects all attempts to be dominated by the West on the question of the Ukraine war and on much else.
It is also clear from the decision to raise the participation of the African Union in the G20 from the status of Guest to that of full-fledged member that the G20 was emulating BRICS in giving a still greater voice to the Global South. The logic of these developments is to raise the likelihood of fundamental reform of the United Nations Security Council and other UN institutions so that they also better represent the balance of economic and political power in the world today, not that of 1949, as is presently the case.
Our moderator mentioned in passing an important agreement announced on the sidelines of the G20, namely the launch of an East-West corridor that will provide much faster freight transport by rail from India through the Middle East to Europe. Given expectations for India to become a much larger manufacturer and contributor to global commerce in coming years, the planned new infrastructure will be welcome. That the corridor was conceived by the United States and allies as a response to China’s Belt and Road initiative is beyond doubt, but so what?
What has been missing in remarks about the new East-West corridor is how it matches with the North-South Transport Corridor that is now being enhanced by agreement between Russia, Iran and India. That already provides for transmodal freight arriving in India from Russia and the Central Asian states and being shipped across to Saudi Arabia for onward delivery westward and southward, into northeast Africa. The net result of these two projects will be to make India a major transportation hub in Asia.
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