{"id":293128,"date":"2025-04-14T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=293128"},"modified":"2025-04-13T13:13:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T12:13:00","slug":"giving-birth-to-the-new-international-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/04\/giving-birth-to-the-new-international-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Birth to the New International Order"},"content":{"rendered":"

11 Apr 2025 – The multipolar world will be born when the geopolitical weight of Asia, Africa, and Latin America matches their rising economic weight.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Writing in his cell as political prisoner in fascist Italy after World War I, the philosopher Antonio Gramsci famously declared: \u201cThe crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.\u201d\u00a0 A century later, we are in another interregnum, and the morbid symptoms are everywhere.\u00a0 The US-led order has ended, but the multipolar world is not yet born.\u00a0 The urgent priority is to give birth to a new multilateral order that can keep the peace and the path to sustainable development.<\/p>\n

We are at the end of a long wave of human history that commenced with the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama more than 500 years ago.\u00a0 Those voyages initiated more than four centuries of European imperialism that peaked with Britain\u2019s global dominance from the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) to the outbreak of World War I (1914).\u00a0 Following World War II, the US claimed the mantle as the world\u2019s new hegemon.\u00a0 Asia was pushed aside during this long period.\u00a0 According to widely used macroeconomic estimates, Asia produced 65 percent of world output in 1500, but by 1950, that share had declined to just 19% (compared with 55% of the world population).<\/p>\n

In the 80 years since World War 2, Asia recovered its place in the global economy.\u00a0 Japan led the way with rapid growth in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by the four \u201cAsian tigers\u201d (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea) beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, and then by China beginning around 1980, and India beginning around 1990.\u00a0 As of today, Asia constitutes around 50% of the world economy, according to IMF estimates.<\/p>\n

The multipolar world will be born when the geopolitical weight of Asia, Africa, and Latin America matches their rising economic weight.\u00a0 This needed shift in geopolitics has been delayed as the US and Europe cling to outdated prerogatives built into international institutions and to their outdated mindsets.\u00a0 Even today, the US bullies Canada, Greenland, Panama and others in the Western Hemisphere and threatens the rest of the world with unilateral tariffs and sanctions that are blatantly in violation of international rules.<\/p>\n

Asia, Africa and Latin America need to stick together to raise their collective voice and their UN votes to usher in a new and fair international system.\u00a0 A crucial institution in need of reform is the UN Security Council, given its unique responsibility under the UN Charter to keep the peace. \u00a0 The five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the P5) \u2013 Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States \u2013 reflect the world of 1945, not of 2025.\u00a0 There are no permanent Latin American or African seats, and Asia holds only one permanent seat of the five, despite being home to almost 60% of the world population.\u00a0 Over the years, many new potential UN Security Council permanent members have been proposed, but the existing P5 have held firmly to their privileged position.<\/p>\n

The proper restructuring of the UN Security Council will be frustrated for years to come.\u00a0 Yet there is one crucial change that is within immediate reach and that would serve the entire world.\u00a0 By any metric, India indisputably merits a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.\u00a0 Given India\u2019s outstanding track record in global diplomacy, its admission to the UN Security Council would also elevate a crucial voice for world peace and justice.<\/p>\n

On all counts, India is a great power.\u00a0 India is the world\u2019s most populous country, having overtaken China in 2024.\u00a0 India is the world\u2019s third largest economy measured at international prices (purchasing-power parity), at $17 trillion, behind China ($40 trillion) and the United States ($30 trillion) and ahead of all the rest.\u00a0 India is the fastest growing major economy in the world, with annual growth of around 6% per year.\u00a0 India\u2019s GDP (PPP) is likely to overtake that of the US by mid-century.\u00a0 India is a nuclear-armed nation, a digital technology innovator, and a country with a leading space program.\u00a0 No other country mentioned as candidate for a permanent UN Security Council member comes close to India\u2019s credentials for a seat.<\/p>\n

The same can be said about India\u2019s diplomatic heft.\u00a0 India\u2019s skillful diplomacy was displayed by India\u2019s superb leadership of the G20 in 2023.\u00a0 India deftly managed a hugely successful G20 despite the bitter divide in 2024 between Russia and the NATO countries.\u00a0 Not only did India achieve a G20 consensus; it made history, by welcoming the African Union to a new permanent membership in the G20.<\/p>\n

China has dragged its feet on supporting India\u2019s permanent seat in the UN Security Council, guarding its own unique position as the only Asian power in the P5.\u00a0 Yet China\u2019s vital national interests would be well served and bolstered by India\u2019s ascension to a permanent UN Security Council seat.\u00a0 This is especially the case given that the US is carrying out a last-ditch and vicious effort through tariffs and sanctions to block China\u2019s hard-earned rise in economic prosperity and technological prowess.<\/p>\n

By supporting India for the UN Security Council, China would establish decisively that geopolitics are being remade to reflect the true multipolar world.\u00a0 While China would create an Asian peer in the UN Security Council, it would also win a vital partner in overcoming the US and European resistance to geopolitical change.\u00a0 If China calls for India\u2019s permanent membership in the UN Security Council, Russia will immediately concur, while the US, UK, and France will vote for India as well.<\/p>\n

The US geopolitical tantrums of recent weeks \u2013 abandoning the fight against climate change, attacking the Sustainable Development Goals, and imposing unilateral tariffs in contravention of core WTO rules \u2013 reflect the truly \u201cmorbid symptoms\u201d of a dying old order. \u00a0 It\u2019s time to make way for a truly multipolar and just international order.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia\u2019s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as Special Adviser to three UN Secretaries-General [Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres. His books include <\/em>The End of Poverty<\/a>, Common Wealth<\/a>, The Age of Sustainable Development<\/a>, Building the New American Economy<\/a>, and most recently,<\/em> A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism<\/a>. Sachs was also an advisor to the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as to the first president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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