BRICS, APEC, and the Role of Trade in Shaping Hegemony Struggles between the West and East

Response Blog Post #4

Global power seems to be shifting towards the East. It seems to be that the future power will fall in the hands of eastern nations, namely, those involved in APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) and BRICS (Brazil Russia India China South Africa). Earlier this year, China warned India that an economic partnership with the US would be a “zero sum trap”, because the Chinese seem to believe that the US is singling out, even pressuring, India to become an ally in order to slow China’s rise. Since this, China and India have reached a common ground in the East. In return for India’s support, China endorsed India’s push to join APEC. Now India is officially a member. APEC has contributed to the progressive reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade in the Asian Pacific region over time, leading to the expansion of economic growth and international trade in the region. This seems to be a foreteller of an expansion of overall power in the region, which means a decrease in the US’ relative power internationally.

            Is this true? If trends continue to follow a pattern, it could be determined that the US could be subject to losing some power. Moreover, the US is quite disturbed by the formation of BRICS and the 2014 trade deal made between Putin and India, and they don’t want India to be pulled into the Chinese-Russian alliance. India is already a part of the BRICS alliance. How significant is BRICS in terms of a threat to the US place on the world scene? Indeed, BRICS is very significant. The populations and the land mass of BRIC areas is enormous, and certainly China has taken over the lead of economic development. India has also had a development in skills, so this does have a potential in abandoning the use of the dollar, of leaving the western financial mechanisms, and this is a direct threat to the exchange of the US dollar. So, the threat becomes that there will be a trade relationship formed that undermines the ability of the US to control all the outcomes. Currently the US has a large amount of control, so it sees BRICS as a hindrance to control outcome. Therefore, the US will likely do what it can to break BRICS up, and reasonably so, from a Realist’s perspective, because the BRICS countries make up over a quarter of the world’s GDP, so they pose a threat to the US in terms of rising hegemony.

BRICS creates its own system of trade and finance for helping developing nations in which it doesn’t have to be reliant on the US. Likewise, the Chinese have been working deals with other countries in exchange for oil to cut the dollar out, strongly in South America and Africa. The basis of American power is the dollar as world reserve currency, because it means the US can pay its bills by printing money, so it therefore eliminates any financial constraint on the US. China is purposely and consciously trying to create a trade system in which the role of the dollar disappears, because that means the demand for the dollar falls, and as the demand of the dollar falls, the value of the currency falls, and that helps accelerate the loss of role of world reserve currency. The Chinese are doing this as a response to a threat they deem to arise from the US hegemony, and in doing so, they might be on their way to replace the US as the main great power.

http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/02/11/3372

https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/trade-organizations/asia-pacific-economic-cooperation-apec

http://www.russia-direct.org/debates/brics-and-west-partners-or-rivals

Balancing the Security Council

       The Security Council in the United Nations is one of the most criticized aspects of the organization, most specifically; the permanent members and their veto power are often the subject of international scrutiny. I would like to argue that while the system may not be perfect and can be improved, it is not possible nor is it beneficial to get rid of these five permanent members and their power. The five actors on the Security Council are the victors of World War Two, the United States, Russia, France, England and China, and who are also current major world powers. As a result of this, I argue that even if they were to be removed or their roles changed on the council, their influence over other nation in the world and on the council would still be great enough that anything they wanted to get done on the council would still be done. If for some reason this was not the case, it could still be taken care of by some other means, NATO being the best example of this. Secondly, because the Security Council frequently deals with issues that will require military backing or great amounts of funding, taking away these huge actors would make many of the things they want to get done next to impossible without these nations to support them. My final argument in favor of the council is the possibility of abuse from smaller nations who may abuse their power by using the forces of nations such as the United States or Russia in order to solve conflicts that the Security Council did not need to be involved in.

       Because each of the five powers also needs to approve of changes to the council, convincing them to give up power would be very difficult. Instead of abolishing the current system, I think there is potential for improving it while allowing the five permanent members to retain their places and their veto power. As it stands now, there are also ten nonpermanent seats on the council that change every two years that can vote in council decisions, but these members do not have the veto power. These fifteen member vote on almost all major decisions made by the UN, most importantly, peace keeping missions and the acceptance of new members. When voting, the five major powers must agree for anything to pass because of the veto threat and they then must gain the support of only three more states. The power disparity between the big five and the rest of the council is obvious as it stands now and as a result the best way to improve the legitimacy of the council is to better balance out the power in the council. I believe the best way to do this would be to expand the number of nonpermanent members, potentially to twenty. In doing this, each of the two major issues are improved, first, the major powers are able to retain their veto power, which will prevent the abuse of their potential for troops and funding for issues that do not require their attention. Secondly, it would now require these five powers to gain the support of eight more members in order to have a majority for any kind of resolution. By requiring more nonpermanent members to agree to a resolution than permanent members, while the permanent members would still be protected by the veto, the majority of the opinion in the resolution would now come from the other members effectively improving the balance of power amongst the states.

Issues with Globalization's Critiques

Globalization can be defined as a trend of increased interconnectedness, in which capital, trade, and ideas flow across borders.  Globalization has many critiques, two of them being that it causes environmental exploitation and a loss of cultural diversity.  In this post, I attempt to reveal issues with these critiques. Globalization may cause some of these phenomena, but the subjects of these critiques can be avoided without targeting globalization itself.  A changing world is bound to have growing pains.  This does not excuse the wrongdoings that occur alongside globalization.  These wrongdoings deserve to be reformed, but globalization itself does not have to be targeted.

Critics of globalization often point out that it contributes to environmental exploitation.  The Amazon rain forest and areas of Indonesia are being degraded at an astounding rate.  Each year, an area of land the size of West Virginia is deforested due to a demand for timber in the developed world.  The harmful effects that result are a loss of biodiversity and a release of greenhouse gases.  Other practices harmful to the environment include unregulated manufacturing in developing nations.  Large, multinational corporations avoid emissions restrictions by moving their manufacturing facilities to South America and parts of Asia.  As an environmentalist, I understand the magnitude and importance of these issues.  However, I feel that it is misguided to place the blame on globalization itself.  The primary cause of environmental exploitation is not interconnectedness itself, rather it is the result of irresponsible management of resources and cultural consumerism.  Targeting more specific causes of environmental problems would be more beneficial than critiquing globalization.  An anti-globalization movement is overly pessimistic, essentially foregoing the possibility of human unity due to current challenges.  There are plausible solutions to environmental problems that target specific problems.  Giving up on an interconnected world does not have to be the answer.  In fact, globalization is necessary to solve many environmental problems.  To start, the world needs something resembling internationally consistent standards for carbon emissions if corporate exploitation of the third world is to end.  We all share the same atmosphere, and climate change will affect all of us.  We cannot hide behind our national identities and pretend that this problem belongs to someone else.  A sense of global stewardship for the planet must exist.  This process implies globalization.  

Another critique of globalization is the premise that it creates cultural homogeneity.  Almost half of the languages in the world are at risk of being lost.  This cultural erosion is linked to globalization.  Throughout the world, English is becoming the dominant language due to the hegemony of western business.  Anthropologists view this as a problem because language carries with it human experience.  Thousands of languages, rich with experience and ideas, are in danger of being extinguished due to globalization.  Once again, I agree that this is an issue, but not one that can be solved by targeting globalization.  The importance of these languages lies in the fact that they can convey experience and knowledge from a unique perspective.  This relies on the assumption that cultures are able to exchange across borders and have a forum in which to share their experience.  Would it not be counter-intuitive then to target globalization?  Globalization is the only reason scholars know of these endangered languages.  A much more reasonable solution would be to allow globalization to occur, but devote institutions to preserve cultural resources.

Globalization seems to be at the center of glaring issues facing the world today, such as environmental exploitation and cultural erosion.  But critiquing globalization itself for these problems is a rather lazy and illogical practice.  Globalization may be at the center of these problems, but they have more specific causes that need to be targeted.  Reverting to isolationism would be counter-intuitive to the problems created by globalization.  It is natural that growing pains come with an advancing society.  This is no reason to halt advancement altogether.