Shifted Dynamics

Elon Musk supported India’s bid to have a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council, India Betting On Africa's Rise, Global South on the rise but likely to make world order unpredictable

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Jan 25, 2024

UPDATES: Elon Musk voiced support for India’s bid to have a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Musk said in a post that it was absurd the most populous country on the planet is not fairly represented by the UN body. He added that Africa should also have a collective seat at the UN.

Jaishankar S said, "Africa is rising, and India is betting on Africa's rise," because, by any objective assessment, today there is "so much growing for Africa in terms of demography, in terms of resources, in terms of ambition, in terms of, increasingly, of policy alignments". That clearly potent, a very different, much more positive future in the very short term, he said.

The global power balance is shifting southwards, with emerging nations in the Global South challenging traditional norms. Tensions surfaced in talks on the Ukraine war, exposing distrust and criticisms of double standards. Economically and militarily, the Global South is gaining strength. However, internal challenges, like political accusations in India and governance concerns, highlight fragility. The Global South's unity is questioned, seen in reduced attendance at the Belt and Road Summit. This diversity contributes to an unpredictable international order, challenging established power structures.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk in June 2023 Photograph:(Twitter) © WION

‘Revision needed,’ Elon Musk throws weight behind India’s bid for permanent seat at UNSC

By WION

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and the ‘Chief Troll Officer’ at X, has supported India’s bid to have a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Musk said in a post that it was absurd the most populous country on the planet is not fairly represented at the UN body. He added that Africa should also have a collective seat at the UN.

“At some point, there needs to be a revision of the UN bodies. Problem is that those with excess power don’t want to give it up,” Musk wrote in the post.

“India not having a permanent seat on the Security Council, despite being the most populous country on Earth, is absurd. Africa collectively should also have a permanent seat imo,” he added.

Earlier, in a post on X, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also made an appeal to the P5 nations to implement reforms at the elite table. As of now, the P5 or five permanent members—Russia, the UK, China, France, and the United States—hold veto power over any substantial resolution.

“Institutions must reflect today’s world, not that of 80 years ago. September’s Summit of the Future will be an opportunity to consider global governance reforms & rebuild trust,” Guterres posted on X, asking why Africa still lacks a permanent membership.

Quoting this post, Michael Eisenberg, a venture capitalist, wrote, “And what about India? Better yet is to dismantle the United Nations and build something new with real leadership.”

Musk’s post came in response to Eisenberg.

S Jaishankar was addressing the Nigeria-India Business Council © NDTV

India Betting On Africa's Rise": S Jaishankar In Nigeria

By NDTV

Abuja, Nigeria: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday said India is "betting on Africa's rise" and the rebalancing and the multipolarity of the world will not be complete until the continent takes its due place.

Addressing the Nigeria-India Business Council (NIBC) here, the foreign minister said the rebalancing and reordering of a new global order will only happen when the core of it is economic, which is the rise of Africa has to be the economic rise of Africa.

"Now, that obviously presents choices, because it is very difficult to go up in the global order by being a market for others or just by being a provider of resources," he said.

"We are betting on Africa because...we have a shared past, not always a happy history, not between us, but between us and some other people. But it is a history which has engendered an enormous solidarity. And that solidarity today makes me say very clearly that for us, when we speak about a changing global order...the reordering of the world, the rebalancing, the multipolarity of the world will not be complete until Africa takes its due place," S Jaishankar said.

U.S. President Joe Biden, right, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend a Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment event at the G20 summit in New Delhi on Sept. 9, 2023. © Reuters

Global South on the rise but likely to make world order unpredictable

By TOSHIHIRO SATO, Nikkei staff writer

TOKYO -- The pole of the world is shifting, though swingingly, from north to south due to the rise of emerging countries collectively called the Global South. The shift can upset conventional wisdom in the international community, but it is hardly smooth.

Senior government officials from the Group of Seven leading economies and other countries such as India and Turkey secretly gathered in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh on Dec. 16 last year for informal talks on a peace plan for the Ukraine war.

The plan was aimed at countering Russia, with participants supporting Ukraine's demand for an absolute withdrawal of Russian forces. During the meeting, however, emerging nations made a spate of calls for Ukraine to hold dialogues for peace with Russia. With Ukraine reacting sharply to them, the meeting ended in a chilly mood, according to sources familiar with the Riyadh gathering.

At another meeting in October, Turkey and other countries called for abiding by international law in the self-governing Palestinian territory of Gaza and criticized the U.S. and Europe. Emerging countries are growing more distrustful of the double standard of the U.S. and Europe that side with Israel while denouncing Russia for violating international human rights law.

Some 80 years have passed since the end of World War II in 1945. The world has enjoyed stability and prosperity under the United Nations and other postwar institutions set up mainly by victor countries. However, emerging nations are strengthening their say in place of the victors of WWII.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in an interview with Nikkei last year, "The credibility of the U.N. Security Council and its decision-making process will always be questioned if it continues to deny representation on a permanent basis to the world's largest democracy, as well as entire continents like Africa and Latin America."

India, together with Japan and Germany, has long sought to reform the U.N. Security Council. As a voice representing the Global South, India now criticizes the conventional order. There are three power changes behind India's confidence.

In 2023, India became the world's most populous country. According to U.N. data, the world had a population of 8 billion in 2022, up more than three times from 1950. Population in the Group of 77, a coalition of emerging countries other than China, has been increasing in particular and now accounts for some 60% of the world's population.

Economically, the world is also moving toward an era when emerging countries will play leading roles. India is forecast to surpass Japan in terms of gross domestic product in 2026. The Mitsubishi Research Institute estimates that the G77 will become bigger than the U.S. and China in GDP in around 2040.

The military balance is also starting to change. While the G7 accounted for some 70% of military expenditures in the world 30 years ago, the ratio dropped to around 50% in 2022, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Adm. Petronio Augusto Siqueira de Aguiar, the director general of nuclear and technological development of the Brazilian Navy, told Nikkei in a recent interview that the country will not end merely as a supplier of natural resources, revealing that it will develop a nuclear-powered submarine on its own for full deployment by 2033.

When the project is completed, Brazil will become the first country to field nuclear submarines in the Southern Hemisphere and seventh in the world after the U.S., China, Russia and three other countries.

But signs of fragility are also observable in the Global South amid its growing presence.

In October 2023, India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Modi, successively accused Rahul Gandhi, a member and former head of the biggest opposition Congress party, on X, formerly Twitter, of attempting to undermine Bharat, the name for India in Indian languages. The slanderous messages were reportedly posted by the BJP's so-called "I.T. Cell," which manages social media campaigns for the party.

Moves to govern a big country through strict control of information by non-state actors are by no means democratic.

The solidary of the Global South is also questionable. Even the Belt and Road Summit, a premier international platform for promoting economic collaboration in line with China's global infrastructure development strategy, held in Beijing in October 2023, was attended by only 24 countries, down from 37 at the previous meeting in 2019, partly because there were nations taking issue with the deepening of ties between China and Russia.

As chair of the Group of 20 major economies, Brazil held a sherpa meeting in December and showed its intention not to adopt a joint statement at the G20 foreign ministerial meeting in February due to the difficulty of consolidating opinions over the Ukraine and Gaza wars. But South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Turkey immediately reacted negatively.

The Global South is not monolithic at all, leaving the international order shakier and even more unpredictable, pundits say.

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