The latest G-20 meeting has highlighted the competition for leadership of the global south between India and China. Xi Jinping wanted to make the summit less relevant by not attending. This has been saved with a minimal declaration on Ukraine and the inclusion of the African Union. The last meeting of the Bricks (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) decided to expand the group to Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran and the Gulf Emirates. Added to the autocracies of China and Russia and the troubled democracies of the remaining three are some dictatorial regimes. The undisguised purpose is to build a coalition to remake the US-led international order after World War II, rather than helping developing countries have a voice.
Beijing fears being contaminated by democratic ideas that call into question the system, in the same way that Vladimir Putin cannot tolerate a democratic Ukraine. China has great and growing influence in developing countries through investments and loans that create dependency in recipient countries. In the technological and military competition between the US and China there is a tension between economic efficiency (with globally integrated production chains) and security. It is very difficult to limit the exchange of technology for military applications and not for civil ones. Technology companies like Apple have much of their production and many consumers in China. Now the Chinese State, in response to the restrictions imposed by the US, has prohibited its officials from using the iPhone.
India has a conflict with China, with a democratic tradition and non-alignment between blocs, and can be a pivot towards the West despite the illiberal tendency of President Narendra Modi. The US is rapidly losing influence in the world, wants to strengthen the G-20 and treats New Delhi with great care (in Modi's recent visit to Washington and Joe Biden's deference in the G-20).
The possible success of the Brics as an anti-West coalition shows that it has done something wrong. Multilateral institutions such as the World Bank or the IMF have not provided effective support to developing countries, with Africa as a clear case. The US has promoted the G-20 declaration to strengthen multilateral institutions and to address the problems of debt unsustainability, the most relevant points of the New Delhi declaration. Reforming the Breton Woods institutions means transforming governance and giving a voice to emerging countries (the presidency of the World Bank is still determined in the US and that of the IMF, in Europe). They complain that international regulation is not adapted to their idiosyncrasies and needs (this is what I have heard first-hand in my experience teaching regulators in these countries).
For Western democracies, a dilemma arises when an investor from a company or funds controlled by an autocratic state appears. This is the case of the Saudi investment in Telefónica. The EU has embraced the concept of open strategic autonomy to address the dilemma between investment and control by a foreign state that may have strategic objectives. Democracy and respect for the rules drive free trade and international investments, and not the other way around. We can therefore expect more restrictions in the future. The G-20 is imperfect, but it is good that the summit did not fail.
