Global and/or Regional Developmentat the Start of the 21st Century?China, India and (South) Africa

TIMOTHY M SHAW, ANDREW F COOPER &AGATA ANTKIEWICZ

ABSTRACT Projected economic growth for China and India presents consider-able opportunities and dilemmas for the African region, especially for humandevelopment, rights and security around its own growth centre, South Africa.This article juxtaposes a set of overlapping perspectives—emerging economiesversus NICs, fragile versus developmental states, new regionalisms, resourceconflicts and new South – South relations—to analyse the present andprospective implications for sub-Saharan and South African development.Sustained Chinese and Indian growth may present opportunities, even windfalls,for some countries, companies, classes and sectors on the continent but not forall. This opens up a number of fundamental questions in terms of an expandedresearch agenda. Will Chinese and Indian multinational corporations andsupply chains operate similarly or differently from familiar Anglo-Americanones? Will civil societies within and diasporas around India and China affecttheir respective transnational relations? And will African regional institutions beable to moderate any negative impacts from these changing dynamics? Recentreview articles have suggested that international relations (IR) in Africa is‘different’. But what is neglected is how the emerging relationship with Chinaaffects this assertion. The article concludes with reflections on implications fordevelopment policy and theory arising from ‘drivers’ such as China, India, andSouth Africa at the start of the new century. Our thesis is that, given growingdivergences in Africa to sustain resource extraction, the emerging economieshave to deal with fragile well as developmental states. Crucial in determiningthis outcome is whether or not the continent’s single ‘superpower’ can facilitateor mediate this process given its own national interest and human developmentconcerns.

In the coming decades, China and India will disrupt workforces, industries,companies and markets in ways that we can barely begin to imagine . . . Howthese Asian giants integrate with the rest of the world will largely shape the 21stcentury global economy. (Business Week, 2005: 38)

Timothy M Shaw is at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad. Email: tshaw@fss.uwi.tt.

Andrew F Cooper and Agata Antkiewicz are both at the Centre for International Governance Innovation

(CIGI) Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Email: acooper@cigionline.org.

Third World Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 7, 2007, pp 1255 – 1270

ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/07/071255–16 � 2007 Third World Quarterly

DOI: 10.1080/01436590701591804 1255

As 2010 approaches, the global political economy and hence globaldevelopment policies and prospects are in considerable flux, even if mostanalysts of both, interrelated genres fail to so recognise. The growing numberand diversity of actors, issues and relations in the global political economymake rethinking imperative. The roughly 200 states in the world increasinglyinteract with a host of major international NGOs (INGOs) and multinationalcorporations (MNCs), from the global South as well as the North, many ofwhich in effect have their own ‘foreign policies’, brands, forms of publicadvocacy and even, in some cases, personalistic celebrity diplomacy (Cooper,2007b).Given globalisation pressures, states as well as other actors are becoming

more unequal in the new millennium. One direction is downwards: of some200 national governments at least 50 are characterised as ‘failed’, ‘weak’ or‘fragile’ states (DFID, 2005; Dunn & Shaw, 2001). The other direction – thecore of this article – is upwards: ‘emerging economies’ aspiring towardsthe top tier of the global architecture. At the core of this dynamic is thephenomenon of BRIC, with China, India and South Africa (CISA) as a‘Southern’ subset. That is to say a group that encompasses the BRICcountries, excluding Russia and Brazil, but includes South Africa. Thisarticle focuses on one particular strand of this emerging tectonic shift: thatbetween the trio of Asian and African drivers—CISA—and their pair ofregions. We highlight in particular the analytic and policy challenges posedby the dramatic inequalities present in sub-Saharan Africa. As the ‘AfricanEconomic Outlook 2007’ prepared by the African Development Bank andthe OECD for the former’s first annual meeting in Shanghai in May 2007suggested, African growth at the end of the first decade of the new century islikely to reach 5.5%–6% pa; but not all countries, communities, cities orsectors will benefit. Oil exporters may grow at 7.5% while importers are likelyto grow at less than 5%, although mineral exporters will perform better than‘dependent’ agricultural economies (see www.afdb.org; www.oecd.org).At first glance, these two tendencies—downwards and upwards—may

appear to be contradictory, producing very different images and results: avery uneven pattern of globalisation? But on closer examination the twotrends can be seen to be two sides of the same coin: winners and losers fromglobalisation (Bowles et al, 2007a; Bowles et al, 2007b). Moreover, a post-bipolar triad of distinctive state types is gradually evolving: the ‘first world’club around the OECD, which may come to include some or all of BRICs orCISA; the new ‘second’ tier world of ‘emerging economies’ (BRICs and/orCISA, plus possibly some of the newly industrialising countries—NICs); andan extensive and heterogeneous ‘third world’ (previously the G77) of the rest,thereby producing a new three-world structure (for more on this see thespecial issue of International Affairs (2006) on emerging powers). In turn, anew typology and hierarchy of non-state actors has likewise been recognised:of global-to-local NGOs and MNCs. The ‘triangular’ relations at all levelsamong these three distinct yet overlapping actor types—state, corporate andcivil society—are the bases of contemporary ‘global governance’ (Common-wealth Foundation, 1999: 16).

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What is apparent in both sets of triangular formulations—among statesand between state and non-state actors—is that size matters. In theimmediate post-cold war era, there appeared to be some space for middle-sized actors using nimble forms of economic creativity and diplomatic agilityto create niches for themselves: classic Canadian –Australian – smallerEuropean ‘middle power’ ambitions or illusions (Cooper, 1997). Evidenceof these types of relocations are apparent through the appearance of ‘new’multilateralisms in the 1990s, including heterogeneous mixed actor coalitionsand networks such as the Ottawa and Kimberley processes around landminesand conflict diamonds, respectively. But these type of bottom-up patterns ofassociation have been overshadowed, if not superseded, by the top down‘coalitions of the willing’ used in the invasion of Iraq and the war againstterrorism (Cooper, 2005).In the post-bipolarity global environment the imperative of economic

competitiveness is undeniable. So MNCs from the South, especially withinBRIC (Goldstein, 2007), are increasingly challenging and sometimes purchas-ing established companies and facilities in the North. And there areindications of parallel splits among NGOs on the basis of size and scale(INGOs like Oxfam and World Vision versus Southern groups, some of whichare extensive and well established like the Aga Khan Foundation but most ofwhich are much more modest). In addition faith-based organisations are notjust Christian but span the spectrum of beliefs around Buddhism, Hinduism,Islam, etc (Clarke & Jennings, 2007). Meanwhile, the emerging economiesespouse a wide variety of forms of capitalism beyond established Anglo-American and European corporatist types (Goldstein, 2007). Emergingeconomies present novel varieties of capitalisms; not just the great traditionof Japan, but also norms from China and India as well as Brazil, Singaporeand South Africa to give just some of the most obvious examples (le Pere,2006; Mukherjee Reed, 2003; Villares, 2006).Among states and traditional ‘realist’ students of IR, the extent of

seemingly exponential global reordering has been obscured by a lingeringpreoccupation with the old North Atlantic configuration—the USA and EU/UK. This article attempts to reorient the focus, required even from a state-centric bias, through a close look at the second of these triangularformulations: the emergence of new economies and powers. Along withothers, we characterise these as the BRIC or CISA states at the core, along withother aspirants in BRIC plus—which extends to the ASEAN-4 (Indonesia,Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand), Mexico, and other non-emerging econo-mies, especially a set of regional powers such as Egypt, Iran, Nigeria andTurkey. This is, in other words, a grouping that can be termed the ‘new’global ‘middle’.Such a perspective is quite compatible with the analytic perspective of ‘new

regionalisms’ (more fluid and open than formal, interstate economicarrangements) between the global and local. These regionalisms may beecological (with attention most importantly to river basins and island groups)(UNDP, 2006: 201 – 231), economic (including brands and logistics), informal/illegal (drugs, gangs and guns, migrations), social (linguistic and religious

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communities), and may comprise an expanded sense of strategic considera-tions (Boas et al, 2005: esp 1 – 12, 167 – 173). And in the case of several of theBRIC/CISA, countries, it must be appreciated that there is a broader ‘regional’reach than in their immediate geographical region: Brazil, India, Russia andSouth Africa are central players in postcolonial ‘commonwealths’, whetherPortuguese-, Russian- or Spanish-speaking, just as India and South Africaare in the anglophone Commonwealth (Shaw, 2007).But a consistent feature of such mid-rank states, notwithstanding other

variations, is their relative size, stature and leverage in both global andregional dimensions. Is it really feasible to lump together such heterogeneousemerging economies? A similar issue of heterogeneity arose around the NICsin the last quarter of the 20th century. How homogeneous were Hong Kong,Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan? This nuanced appreciation ofindividual characteristics raises many points, economic and political, regionaland global. However, the core question must be whether size is enoughto change the rules and structures of the extant global system (Cooper,2007a).We can also ask how different the emerging economies of the new century

are from the ‘model’ NICs of the 1970s and 1980s. The NICs declined to followthe dictates of ‘extreme’ liberalisation advocated in the erstwhile, nowdiscredited or diminished ‘Washington Consensus’. Nonetheless theirdistinctive ‘Asian values’ did not exclude flaws, most notably cronyism andpatrimonialism, features that extended into the diasporas: hence theAsian crisis, leading to reduced resistance to orthodox liberalisationconditionalities.It is also undeniable that the move of BRIC, CISA and BRIC plus, especially

China and India into the new ‘second world’ at the start of the 21st century ishaving an impact on other markets and continents such as Africa whereenergy, raw materials and services etc are concerned (Alden, 2007; SAJIA,2006a; 2006b; Schmitz, 2007). Akin to the post-crisis NICs, the CISA will cometo be characterised by less state, more market and more globalisation,including diasporas, as captured in the special issue of Business Week(2005: 34):

Rarely has the economic ascent of two still relatively poor nations beenwatched with such a mixture of awe, opportunism and trepidation. The postwarera witnessed economic miracles in Japan and South Korea. But neither waspopulous enough to power worldwide growth or change the game in a completespectrum of industries. China and India, by contrast, possesses the weight anddynamism to transform the 21st century global economy.

As we recognised at the outset, such analysis presents a range of profoundimplications for a set of overlapping analytic fields as well as applied policies:not just political science and political economy (Payne, 2005b) but alsodevelopment (Desai & Potter, 2002; Hadad & Knowles, 2007; Haynes, 2005),regional (Boas et al, 2005) and security (MacLean et al, 2006) studies, towhich we return in the conclusion. As rehearsed above, this article necessarily

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involves the juxtaposition of established disciplines and emergingapproaches: from fragile to developmental states; new regionalisms; formaland informal resource conflicts; new South – South relations etc, let alone thepolitical economy of CISA.But first, we suggest that dealing with sub-Saharan Africa may present

unanticipated challenges for CISA, especially for the African superpower,South Africa. Then we will look at economic size before turning to some ofthe limitations of macroeconomic preoccupations and the implications forAfrica, not only South Africa, but also the minority of developmental states(Mbabazi & Taylor, 2005) and the majority of fragile states (DFID, 2005;Rosser, 2006).

CISA and sub-Saharan Africa: compatible or competitive?

Growth prospects in at least some countries, regions and sectors of sub-Saharan Africa have improved dramatically because of demand for energyand minerals as well as markets from BRIC/CISA, especially China then India.Since the turn of the century, at least half of the fastest growing economieshave been in sub-Saharan Africa (EIU, 2005). Asian drivers are affectingAfrica with profound implications for South Africa (Kaplinksy, 2005). Whatis still unclear—albeit crucial—is the nature of impact. Are China and Indiacompatible and/or competitive with South Africa in sub-Saharan Africa (lePere, 2006, SAJIA, 2006a; 2006b, Taylor, 2006)? This issue is especially intensegiven South Africa’s own interest in energy (including water and electricityfrom the Congo basin!) and minerals from the continent, as demonstrated bythe investments, roles and technologies of Eskom, Anglo American andDe Beers to list the most obvious cases. South African franchises, servicesand supply chains (Absa, DSTV, MTN, Nandos, Protea, Shoprite, Stanbic)stretch throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Will these businesses benefit from orcompete with Chinese entrepreneurs? As is well known, cheap imports intoSouth Africa from China have undermined established manufacturingsectors such as clothing. What is less clear is whether other sectors such ascoal and steel can compensate for such losses in the form of employmentopportunities, with backward and forward linkages.As noted, recent transatlantic review articles (Brown, 2006; Lemke, 2003)

have posed a parallel question: is there a distinctive ‘African’ IR? We presenta related puzzle: will BRIC/CISA be able to mediate between developmentaland fragile states in sub-Saharan Africa or will such a challenge undermine ormoderate their own growth projections presented in the next section? Inshort, might the costs of dealing with Africa’s fragile states (Rosser, 2006)reduce the expansion of the emerging economies? Or might South Africa beable to facilitate BRIC/CISA to its own advantage, via the New Partnership forAfrican Development (NEPAD) and other mechanisms. Does South Africahave the power resources to invest in developmental states in sub-SaharanAfrica while also containing the fallout from conflicts in fragile ones, falloutthat includes the flow of migrants, guns, drugs and viruses into South Africa(Bhulungu et al, 2006; Bhulungu et al, 2007)? And might such trade-offs

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affect its own claims and prospects as an aspiring ‘African democraticdevelopmental state’ (Mbabazi & Taylor, 2005)?

Macroeconomic underpinnings of the power shift

Global development in the new century is affected by the changing economicstance of the emerging powers and their growing influence on both the worldeconomy and the global institutional architecture.1 In particular, theunprecedented growth in China and India—central to each of the BRIC,CISA and extended BRIC plus (Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran,Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Thailand,Turkey) groups—draws attention to the new players on the global stage.Scenarios now predict that in less than 40 years the economies of Brazil,Russia, India and China will be bigger than those of the G-6 (Wilson &Purushothaman, 2003; Antkiewicz & Whalley, 2005) in US dollar terms.However, as cautioned in the previous section, dealing with fragile as well asdevelopmental states in Sub-Saharan Africa may moderate some of theseoverly optimistic, economistic scenarios.Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 present the main economic indices of the BRIC

plus countries in comparison to those of the OECD and world. Growth ratesof the BRIC plus economies compared with the OECD and world aggregatesfluctuate strongly (see Mexico and Russia for example). However, they are,for the most part, significantly higher than the OECD aggregate and match orsurpass the world’s average (Figure 1). A striking picture emerges fromFigure 2, which compares the GDP size of BRIC plus (individually and as agroup) based on current prices and official (market) exchange rates to GDP atPPP rates reflecting differences in the prices of goods and services acrosscountries.The difference in the relative size of the BRIC plus economies calculated on

such alternative bases is dramatic. Based at current prices, the size of theBRIC plus group’s GDP was almost one-fifth that of the OECD, while on thePPP basis it was close to two-thirds (in 2005). If the annual growth differentialbetween BRIC plus and the OECD continues at a modest 4%, BRIC plus’s GDP

will be bigger than that of the OECD by around 2045 (current prices) or2015 (PPP). This simple extrapolation of current growth in BRIC plus doesnot account for any factors that may hinder growth in the emergingeconomies; however, it certainly paints a picture of a major shift in the globaleconomy.In 2005 BRIC plus accounted for close to 40% of the world’s total foreign

exchange reserves and surpassed those of the OECD (Figure 3). CurrentlyChina, India and Russia are among the biggest holders of foreign exchangereserves in the world. High foreign reserves originate from a notable pace oftrade growth of the BRIC plus countries. In 2005 BRIC plus’s cumulativeexports accounted for one-fifth of the world’s total and one-third of those ofthe OECD (Figure 4). With the exception of Indonesia, Philippines andMexico, export growth of the BRIC plus countries exceeded 20% (40% inIndia, based on 2004) and was 10% higher than that of the OECD. Again a

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simple extrapolation of this trend shows that, within the next decade, BRIC

plus may replace the OECD as the main source of world trade. If the growthdifferential is assumed at half the current value, this occurs by 2030. It is nosurprise that China, with its trade-oriented economy, leads this trend,

FIGURE 1. BRIC plus growth rates, selected years (%). Note: BRIC plus¼Brazil,China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines,Russia, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey. Source: World Bank, WorldDevelopment Indicators online.

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FIGURE 2. BRIC plus GDP size relative to OECD and world on alternative bases: GDP

at current prices and purchasing power parity (PPP), selected years. Sources: CIA,World Factbook, 2005; OECD, Factbook, 1990 – 2004; and World Bank, WorldDevelopment Indicators online.

FIGURE 3. BRIC plus foreign reserves, selected years (US$ billion). Source: WorldBank, World Development Indicators online.

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accounting for one-third of total BRIC plus exports. But it is important tonote that China is not only a fast growing exporter. China’s imports havealso been rising significantly over the past few years. By way of example,Africa’s exports to China have grown by over 1200% in a decade, reaching$25 billion in 2006.Many question the sustainability of BRIC plus’s growth both in product

and trade, pointing to potential dangers in the financial structure of the BRIC

plus economies and the risk of financial crisis, environmental constraints,slower growth of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, and the absorptivecapacity of the OECD limiting exports from BRIC plus. Another issue exposingthe vulnerability of this group is growth dependency on one sector of theeconomy. For example, Chinese growth is based on goods trade and FDI

inflows, Russian on gas exports via a growing pipeline network to the EU,while Indian is internally generated thanks to a growing services trade,including global outsourcing (Kobayashi-Hillary, 2005). Brazil depends onits agriculture and mining and South Africa has found a niche in globalsupply chains of automotive parts (especially catalytic converters and leatherseats) as well as serving as the economic and logistics hub for sub-SaharanAfrica. Other social issues may also limit growth, for example, gender

FIGURE 4. BRIC plus trade relative to OECD and world (total merchandise), selectedyears. Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators online.

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imbalances in both China and India, growing inequality (India, Brazil),ageing societies (China, Russia), declining life expectancy (Russia) orincreasing health problems (South Africa).

BRIC/CISA: how homogeneous? How heterogeneous?

It is often assumed that the emerging economies, however defined orgrouped, share the same interests and agenda on the global stage. While thismay be true to some degree (for example calling for more consideration oftheir own developmental needs and securing bigger concessions fromdeveloped countries in trade negotiations), BRIC/CISA countries also competewith one another in various spheres. Moreover, some of their regionalambitions overlap as well.As noted in the first section, most if not all BRIC plus countries can be

considered regional hubs with strong and growing influence on neighbouringcountries. But they also compete with each other to assume the position ofthe leader in their respective regions (notable illustrations include China andIndia, Brazil and Mexico). This competitive pattern plays out across a widecontinuum, from the national to the micro- and meso-regional perspectives.However, in terms of CISA in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa is the soleregional hegemon (Draper & le Pere, 2005).At the same time they all compete for international image and status. Both

India and Brazil call for expanding the UN Security Council so that itincludes their representatives. There is a joint call for reforms of the BrettonWoods Institutions, pointing to their inadequacy and outdated structures.For example, voting structure in the IMF is currently dominated by the G-7with its 47.13% of votes and does not represent the interest or concerns ofdeveloping countries. Indeed, typically now, BRIC and CISA are invited to G-8summits in their own right as regional representatives of the global South(Cooper, 2007a).Emerging countries also pursue economic co-operation via regional trade

agreements (RTAs) concluded outside the World Trade Organization (WTO).Faced with the stall in multilateral trade negotiations, the BRIC plus countrieshave become more and more active in negotiating numerous RTAs(Antkiewicz & Whalley, 2006). These agreements vary in scope and coveragebut a growing number of them goes well beyond issues covered in the WTO,including services trade liberalisation, mutual recognition, competitionpolicy, co-operation in investment, education, tourism, science and tech-nology, movement of persons, co-ordination of customs procedures andstandards policy.Growing economies and the market needs of the BRIC plus countries

create increasing competition in various sectors of the global economy.Obvious Chinese domination in manufacturing and trade with the OECD

at the expense of India, Mexico and others makes them rethink theirpolicies. China is currently the second largest exporter to the USA afterCanada, replacing Mexico in 2002 despite both geographical proximityand NAFTA.

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Unable to compete with Chinese low wages in assembly-oriented manu-facturing, India has laid emphasis on education and services as theunderpinnings of its growth. India is currently the leader in IT services(Fortune, 2005; Kobashi-Hilary, 2005; Mathias, 2006) but China, Russia,Mexico, and a few of the ASEAN states have already started to grow their ownIT sectors to benefit from the globalisation of services and the second wave ofWestern outsourcing (the first wave being manufacturing outsourcing toChina). Thanks to the rise of the middle class in the emerging economies, theIT services sector will probably be transformed further. Western markets willmature soon and the biggest business opportunities will come from the BRIC

group.Amid signs of co-operation, as was apparent in the exchanges of leaders’

visits in 2006, China and India compete on many fronts. China may havegreater foreign reserves but India is more multilateralist (including theCommonwealth connection) and regionalist (South Asian Association forRegional Co-operation versus Shanghai Co-operation Organization).Symbolically China hosts the summer Olympics in 2008; India theCommonwealth Games in 2010.Another sphere of competition is access to resources. Although they

sometimes co-operate, China in particular continues to buy up mines, oil andother resource companies in South America and Africa. In sub-SaharanAfrica, e.g. in Angola, Nigeria, Sudan and Zimbabwe, China is more activeand aggressive than India (le Pere, 2006; Taylor, 2006), with implications forits relations with South Africa in CISA (Draper & le Pere, 2005). Thesetransactions are easier to complete than those in the OECD countries as issuesof subsidisation of purchase (through low-interest loans from the state-supported banking system), human (and labour) rights and involvement ofthe government are usually not central (Antkiewicz & Whalley, 2007).Foreign investment is yet another sphere of BRIC/BRIC plus/CISA com-

petition, with implications for which grouping is most favoured orappropriate. A major redirection of inward FDI has taken place over thepast decade away from Brazil, Mexico and ASEAN and towards China. Indiawins out over China in IT, R&D and business processing FDI but loses out inmanufacturing and assembly. According to World Investment Report 2005,India is currently the second most attractive FDI destination for transnationalcorporations, with China being first, the USA third, Russia fourth, Brazilfifth and Mexico sixth. China is winning the competition thanks to the highereffectiveness of its low-wage labour (as opposed to other low-wage labourcountries) and fewer restrictions around workers’ rights.However, India is more connected into and more compatible with the

established global economy, in part as a legacy of the raj (Cohen, 2001; Das,2000; Khilnani, 1997; Kohli, 2001). More familiar laws and structures invarious areas of socioeconomic life as well as a widespread knowledge ofEnglish inherited from the British have made it easier for foreign investors toengage in business activity there; hence the established outsourcing nexusaround Bangalore rather than Bangkok or Beijing (Shaw, 2004). The‘Commonwealth factor’ yields a 10%–15% advantage for anglophone

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economic interactions (Shaw, 2007). On the other hand, the latest GlobalCompetitiveness Report suggests that the Indian economy has to addressmajor constraints like high illiteracy and low enrolment rates, bureaucraticred tape, weak infrastructure and fiscal deficit: ‘provided these challenges aremet, there is no reason why India could not join the ranks of the mostcompetitive economies in the world’ (WEF, 2005: 19).One of the all too often overlooked commonalities among the BRIC plus

countries is the level of migration to the OECD and the increasing levels ofremittances received from their diasporas. According to the World Bank(2005: 87), based on officially recorded data, the global flow of remittancesrose to $167 billion in 2005, up 73% since 2001: ‘More than half of thatincrease occurred in China, India and Mexico. Low-income countries, led byIndia, registered an increase of $18 billion during this period.’India, China, Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, Egypt, and Nigeria are

among the top 20 remittance-recipient countries. The same World Bankreport (2005: 90) presents the following data for 2004 for the top threeremittance-recipients: India $21.7 billion, China $21.3b and Mexico $18.1b; italso includes a box (4.2) detailing ‘The recent surge in remittance flows toIndia’ (World Bank, 2005: 89). Aside from changes in legal and incentivestructures, the Bank suggests that this is a function of successive generationsand sectors of Indian migrations:

India has reported a spectacular increase in remittance inflows—from $13billion in 2001 to more than $21 billion in 2003 . . . During the oil boom inthe 1970s and 1980s, thousands of low-skilled Indian workers migrated to thePersian Gulf countries. In the 1990s, migration to Australia, Canada and theUS increased significantly, particularly among IT workers on temporary workpermits. (World Bank, 2005: 89)

We have emphasised the positive advantages of size in this paper. Yet a fewcautionary notes must be mentioned as well. Structurally the materialcapabilities of the groupings of emerging powers we have highlighted arebalanced if not undermined by the comparable size of many of theirweaknesses. Indeed, even a short list of these weaknesses or vulnerabilities ishighly salient. One of these is the commonalities between these countries interms of corruption. A second relates to the economic imperatives spillingover from shortages of oil, water and raw materials. A third is the increasinglyimbalanced gender ratios in China and India, albeit for different reasons (onechild policy versus infanticide, respectively). A fourth is the informal(sometimes illegal?) structure of some of their economies and networks.And a fifth is their volatile mix of militaries and arms, especially nuclear.Furthermore, one of the major questions before us is whether the emphasis

on size and material interests will translate into robust (or even muscular)forms of economic, even strategic competition. Or, alternatively, whether theemphasis on size will be offset by the salience of diplomatic skills! Whatstands out about all the emerging economies is the contrast between theircollective image as big rising powers and their different (and nuanced) sets of

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diplomatic profiles: China and Russia still display vestiges of bipolar ‘secondworld’ inclinations apparent in their less ‘democratic’ polities and economies.China has a hybrid status as both a country of the first tier (a permanent

member of the UN Security Council) with extensive connections to thedeveloping world. It is also a country that combines an emphasis on hardsecurity and sovereignty with a concerted charm offensive in bilateral termsand a greater appreciation of diverse forms of multilateralism. India alsodisplays some of the repertoire of a hybrid. India wants to join new bilateralclubs (most notably the security arrangement with the USA). However, italso wants to hang onto its G-77 oppositional middle power inclinations(Narliker, 2006), based on the legacies of Gandhi and Nehru.Brazil and South Africa also exhibit multiple, somewhat schizophrenic

personalities on the international stage. In regional terms—Latin Americaand sub-Saharan Africa, respectively—they can exploit their advantages aseconomic powerhouses. In multilateral terms they mix a concern for order asdisplayed through the G-20 finance grouping with embedded support for thetrilateral India –Brazil – South Africa (IBSA) and the G-20 trade coalitionfrom Cancun via the Doha Round. IBSA constitutes an interesting subset ofBRIC/CISA (Shaw et al, 2007). But it is state- rather than non-state-driven andenjoys minimal buy-in from either civil societies or private sectors (Villares,2006).

Lessons from and for CISA: macroeconomic versus other development

directions and debates?

The emergence of China and India as powerful actors in global governancearenas and global politics poses a series of questions for developmentpolicy and the future of global governance. (Humphrey & Messner, 2006: 108)

The analysis of the potential influence of BRIC or CISA has to go beyonduncritical ‘economistic’ projections (Wilson & Purushothaman, 2003) to the‘real’ political economy of development both among and around theerstwhile emerging economies. That is to say from the narrow forecastsassociated with Goldman Sachs to an expanded vision associated with anassortment of new international political economy scholarship (Bowles et al,2007a; Bowles, 2007b; Breslin, 2005; 2007). More problematic scenariosbecome apparent when simple projections of economic growth are combinedwith considerations of conflict and diplomacy, sustainability, social devel-opment, etc (at the crux of ‘real’ IR!). Potential profound implications, asrecognised at the end of our introduction, arise when fragile as well asdevelopmental states are considered, for a set of overlapping perspectives andpolicies, ie not just political science/economy but also development (Haynes,2005), regional studies (Boas et al, 2005) and security studies (MacLean et al,2006). Such reconsiderations in turn lead via juxtaposition of developmentalversus fragile states on to resource conflicts, globalisation (Bowles et al,2007a; Bowles, 2007b), new regionalisms, new South – South relations, etcwith profound implications for CISA.

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Arguably what may be emerging is a new ‘trilateral’ world influenced byemerging economies, especially China and India given the size of theireconomies, position in the global economy and dispersion of generations ofdiasporas. Just as the US deficit may potentially be a problem for the world’sfinancial system as a whole, so the sheer size of China and India can maketheir ‘domestic’ problems along with their forex reserves a world-wide issue(Breslin, 2007; Cohen, 2001; Das, 2000).Varieties of tensions may appear along several dimensions in the fore-

seeable future, for example in access to and security of resource supplies,exercise of power in multilateral fora (Payne, 2005a), expressions of religiousfundamentalisms in North and South, even the degree of coexistence amongboth BRIC and CISA. How such tensions play out, and potentially how theywill be resolved, will be the key to determining the shape of the future globalarchitecture and governance.Time will show how the emerging economies—whether BRIC, CISA, IBSA

and/or BRIC plus—affect global and regional as well as national politics,economics and societies through the first quarter of the new century. It seemsclear, however, as suggested by Humphrey & Messner at the start of thisconclusion, that if the BRIC/CISA economic growth continues over the nextthree to five decades, multiple ripple effects will be felt at national, regional andglobal levels. The potential shift in the global balance of power—economic,political, social, strategic, technological and even ecological—may be evenmore pronounced if these emerging economies decide to act collectively anduse their joint bargaining power to shape or reform global institutions: anotherNew International Economic Order emerging this time from a very differentSouth – South coalition than in the 1970s/1980s? A change in key aspects ofglobal economic governance, international architecture and geopolitics seemsinevitable and, with it, new challenges will arise for decision makers andscholars alike. Hopefully our analytic frameworks can keep pace andconstitute useful guideposts into the second quarter of the 21st century.

Note

1 This part of the paper draws on Antkiewicz and Whalley (2005).

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