Battle for influence: G7, BRICS and the G20

Jakkie Cilliers Correspondent
Influence and economic prowess are steadily moving eastward. Yesterday, the G7 group of industrialised countries (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, as well as the president of the European Union) started their summit meeting in Japan, having last met in Germany.

In September, the G20 group will meet in China (their previous meeting was in Turkey). And finally, in October, the BRICS summit (of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will be hosted by India (the previous host was Russia).

Global clubs are all the rage. Although not by design, that all three of these key meetings will occur in Asia during 2016, tells an important story of the global dispersion of economic weight, political influence and military power characteristic of the 21st century.

In a previous ISS today, I argued that the G7 and BRICS are best understood as two important ideological sub-groups within the larger G20. The G20 grouping consistently accounts for roughly 80 percent of the world’s economy and population (and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future). Within the G20, the relative contribution of the G7 countries is steadily declining on almost all measurements bar individual wealth — while that of the BRICS is increasing.

Dominated by China and India, the relative contribution of the BRICS group to the global economy should, in about 15 years’ time, overtake the share of the G7.

The BRICS countries already have more than four times the population of the G7, and their total defence expenditure will overtake that of the G7 in about five years’ time. Nothing is assured, of course, and events in China or the European Union may readily upset our best attempts at foretelling the future.

But instead of global influence shifting from one subgroup to another, i.e. from the G7 to the BRICS, it does seem more likely that the G20 will emerge as the most empowered and influential. And, instead of contributing to greater fragmentation and discord, the apparent shift of influence to the BRICS will not occur at the direct expense of the G7, but effectively lead to a more even distribution of power among G20 members.

In addition, an emerging global consensus on a range of development and sustainability issues is underpinning all groupings and creating unexpected synergies.

Last year was particularly important. The Third International Conference on Financing for Development, which concluded in July in Addis Ababa, provided the foundation for the United Nations (UN) General Assembly to adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on September 25, 2015.

The binding agreement at the UN climate negotiations in Paris in December to reduce global carbon emissions (adopted by 195 countries) was another key milestone that has, collectively, set a comprehensive global development agenda.

The impact of these agreements will be reflected during all three summit meetings taking place in Asia between now and October. In the process, we are seeing the emergence of an inchoate network of commitments and modes of interaction.

Within this arrangement, countries will still be competing for influence, market and access, but they are also coming together to set common targets and action plans in an increasingly dense web of goal-orientated interaction that promises to guide global coordination and collaboration for years to come.

Thus, according to the official website, the main agenda items for the G7 Summit include building on the outcomes of the Paris agreement; implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals; exploring how the G7 can contribute to closing the estimated $1 trillion global demand-supply gap in infrastructure; and strengthening the response to public health emergencies by learning from previous outbreaks, such as Ebola.

The same agenda items are evident for the G20 Summit, which is set to take place in Hangzhou. This will be first G20 summit to be hosted by China — and Germany, the incoming chair of the G20, is already deeply engaged with Beijing to ensure the continuity of the Chinese focus on the SDGs when it assumes the chair.

The G20 has set itself an ambitious goal of leading the global economy towards “strong, sustainable and balanced growth”. But whereas the G7 summit under Japan’s chairing will deal with various political and security issues — such as Russia, Ukraine’s conflict and the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear ambitions — China has made it clear that the G20 is to steer away from what it terms “political” issues. These will be relegated to the BRICS meeting later in the year, which, like the G7, will pronounce on its areas of ideological concern.

In the agenda of these summits, we can see how global collaboration is emerging at various levels and along various axes. Large differences remain, of course — such as the lack of space for independent civil society and business within the most important members of the BRICS — and the threat of populist nationalism in the developed world. But in general it is important to balance the overblown concerns about terrorism, refugees and instability with appreciation for the extent to which a more crowded world is also likely a more collaborative one.

This evolution is important for Africa, which remains relatively marginal in economic, military and diplomatic terms.

The welcome reality of Africa’s rise will, over the coming decades, undo some of the damage done during the 1970s and ’80s, when the continent largely went backward. That said, the road ahead is perhaps longer than most Africans wish to acknowledge. — ISSAfrica.