Opinion | The rise of a Beijing-led ‘Global South Consensus’
As the Global South seeks a better development model and China looks for alternatives to mature markets, a match made out of mutual need is emerging
In 2004, Joshua Cooper Ramo, now co-CEO of Kissinger Associates, coined the term “Beijing Consensus” as an alternative to the Washington Consensus, the neoliberal framework of economic policies devised in the 1980s by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and US Treasury.
China had just joined the World Trade Organization and, within the country, there was considerable scepticism that a Beijing Consensus existed.
That stimulus unleashed a decade of massive investment in infrastructure, but also an ensuing decade of dealing with a real estate debacle. From 2017, Donald Trump’s first US presidential term signalled a new era of intense geopolitical rivalry.
Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the Global South has had growing doubts over the Washington Consensus, which advocated free trade, free flow of capital, rule of law and democracy as the preferred model for development. After the 2007 crisis, even advanced economies raised doubts.