DAILY EXCEPTION

China is clearly on its way to becoming an economic behemoth, and if there is to be a “Big Two” when it comes to global economic power, the other country will inevitably be China. However, China is not the only country rising. Not even close.

There are other great nations that are also emerging. The “BRIC” moniker after all includes three other countries: Brazil, Russia and India. Leaving aside Russia, which is currently more like Saudi Arabia than it is like China, the two other countries merit focus as rising powers. American policy planners would do well to start taking more serious note of them, and not obsess only on Beijing.

Although Brazil and India hail from opposite sides of the world, they have begun to align their interests both economically (eg the Doha trade round), and politically (eg UN Security Council membership). Along with another rising nation, South Africa, they have formed a loose grouping, un-imaginatively called “IBSA”, a group of democratic emerging economies.

It remains to be seen whether IBSA will become a more formal grouping. We hope that it becomes the core of a new coalition of democracies that America can work with in future years. As this column has repeatedly said, America cannot afford to “go it alone” in the twenty first century. Nor can NATO (in its current form) remain America’s primary alliance going forward.  Global challenges require global solutions.

The Wall Street Journal opinion page carried the following article yesterday entitled “Look to Brasilia, Not Beijing”. The byline talks of “The rising challenge to China’s great power aspirations.”  Its worth reading.

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123912571625797593.html

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