At the top of the world there is only room for one. The United States has occupied it since World War II. But for some years now its military, economic and political hegemony has been threatened by China. Although still limping from its recent financial woes, the Chinese regime has decided to give the final push. Therefore, the two colossi rush to build alliances with pawns to shore up their leadership.
The old Western bloc – Germany, Canada, the United States, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom – is showing signs of exhaustion after so many years at the helm of a planet that is moving towards the East at digital speed. For this reason, it seeks to strengthen NATO and pacts with Australia, South Korea, New Zealand or Japan, countries threatened by Chinese expansionism.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the ring, developing applicants warm up. China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa, the original Brics, have also been reinforced by Saudi Arabia, Argentina, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran and Ethiopia. The result is a team that accounts for 46 percent of the world's population, 37 percent of GDP, and controls most of the world's oil faucet. With the credentials of the founding Brics, it was not foreseeable that they would ask for penalty certificates from the new signings.
Where criminal dictatorships like Russia coexist with autocracies like China and corrupt democracies like those of South Africa, India and, to a lesser extent, Brazil, leg-breakers become artists. Leñeros like Saudi Arabia and Egypt combine with theocracies like Iran, absolute monarchies like that of the United Arab Emirates, the civil turmoil of Ethiopia and the social bomb about to explode in Argentina. The best of each house, but with a doglike obedience to the great helmsman.
Because this is what it is about, buying wills to facilitate the escalation that places the eastern giant at the top in exchange for laundering carnage and corruption of all kinds. The expansion of the Brics is not just a trade agreement, it is a geostrategic challenge where it is at stake who will manage the helm of the planet.
