Middle Powers: IBSA and the New South-South Cooperation
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NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT: THE MULTIPOLAR MOMENT? Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva tnlroduces his officials lo Indian president A.PJ. Abdul Kalam (second from rljht) and Prime Minister Manmohan 5insh (far right) at Rashtrapali Bhavan, India's presidential paiace. in New DeihI. Middle Powers: IBSA and the New South-South Cooperation By Gladys Lechini N THE 1970s, THE WORLD'S UNDERDEVELOPED From IBSAs perspective, the current interna- nations launched the idea of South-South tional economic and financial architecture has I cooperation. Following in the spirit of ill-served the interests of the poor in developing Bandung, they aimed to strengthen their ca- countries, with economic globalization having pacity to negotiate with the North and to solve exacerbated income inequality both within and problems of trade and development in the new across emerging markets. The alliance's objective international economic order. Though the over- is to maximize joint actions as part of a coherent all project met with some modest success, it ul- strategy within international organizations like timately failed because of its loose nature and the World Trade Organization (WTO) on vari- broad scope: The fallacy of its argument was its Gladys lechini ous issues, including pubhc health, pharmaceu- is professor of basic assumption that all underdeveloped coun- tical patents, and government subsidies. international tries have more in common than they really do, The process that led to IBSA began in the reiations al the and that all solutions can be uniformly applied 1990s, when South African minister of trade Notiomi [University 0/ with equal success. and industry Alec Erwin had already envi- Rosario, Argentina. She is (he author Today, a new, more selective South-South co- sioned a G7 for the South to solidify areas of of Argentina y operation has appeared, bringing some hope to common interest within the United Nations and Africa en el espejo the people of our regions. The trilateral alhance the WTO. The idea developed during a series of de Brasil (CUCSO. known as the India, Brazil, and South Africa international meetings attended by representa- 2006). Dialogue Forum, or IBSA, exemplifies the trend. tives from the three countries, and culminated 28 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007 REPORT: THE MULTIPOLAR MOMENT? with the first high-level summit in June 2003, in the run- We can see this in the case of South Africa, IBSAs small- up to the WTO ministerial in Canciin, Mexico, the est member in terms of population and GDP, but a giant in following September. the African context, considered the continent's most pow- Gathered in Brasilia, the three ministers issued a dec- erful pohtical and economic force. The United States re- laration announcing their intention "to hold mains its primary trade partner, exporting more Brazil has been regular political consultations on international goods to the country than to any other African agenda items, as well as to exchange informa- the driving nation, a relationship formalized in agreements tion on areas of mutual cooperation in order to like a generalized preferential trade agree- force behind coordinate their positions on issues of common ment (which grants duty-free status to some interest." Their ultimate goal, they said, was to IBSA, and its 4,650 South African goods) and a irade and make the diverse processes of globalization "a foreign policy investment framework arrangement, which positive force for change for all peoples" that addresses private sector concerns requiring "must benefit the largest number of countries." is itself a good government interventions. A month before the Cancun meeting, IBSA, example of South Africa is thus entangled in a web of U.S. together with China and Argentina, began orga- the new commercial interests that constrain its autono- nizing an alliance among developing countries my. The United States has also courted India, to oppose the North's agricultural protectionism modalities in an attempt to counterbalance China's regional Since its inception, IBSA and China have formed of a more influence, most notably in last year's United the core of the Group of 22 (G22) bloc of de- States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Coopera- veloping countries, which led the fight against productive tion Act, under which Washington is supplying global neoliheral policies at Cancun, As thou- South-South New Delhi with civilian nuclear technology, de- sands of protesters clashed with police outside spite India's not having acceded to the Nuclear cooperation. the meeting's barricades, the G22 refused to ac- Non-Proliferation Treaty For Brazil, which has cept a "precooked deal" that would consolidate U.S. and long identified itself as South America's principal regional EU positions. Following Brazilian foreign minister Celso power, the United States is not only a global but a hemi- Amorim's maxim that "trade must be a tool not only to spheric hegemon. Whether or not U.S. global dominance create wealth but also to distribute it in a more equita- continues, Brazil will continue suffering the influence ble way," the G22 preferred to let the negotiations break of its regional "big brother," as in the recent Bush-Lula down rather than come to an agreement detrimental to agreement on ethanol and biodiesel' us interests. Other countries that may be interested in joining worry Although the G22 emerged from Canain triumphant, it about the exclusionary nature of IBSA, since granting them has not held together well since then. The heterogeneous membership would be an intrinsically political decision. group—including hoth strong exporting countries like Ar- These include, in their respective regions, Mexico and Ar- gentina and Brazil, which want to dissolve tariff harriers to gentina; Nigena, Algeria, and Egypt; and China, Pakistan, their agro-products, and very protectionist ones like India, and Malaysia. But until now the most obvious candidate, China, and Pakistan, which strive to maintain subsidies to Russia, has shown no interest in joining any group, es- protect their small tarmers—had to be renamed the G20+ pecially given Its instability m the G8, while China has to reflect fluctuations in membership. aggressively pursued its own trade interests unilaterally, IBSA, however, has remained strong. The three member though its role as a free rider at Cancun—associating countries face the same problems and have similar interests. with the G20 because circumstances warranted it—did All three consider themselves "middle powers" and leaders not upset a setting conducive to negotiations. of their respective regions, yet they have also been subject to pressures from the North. Indeed, given the associated RAZIL HAS BEEN THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND IBSA, AND strength of its members, IBSA has not gone unnoticed by , its foreign policy is itself a good example of the the great powers, and its potential role has become an ob- Bnew modalities of a more productive South-South ject of surveillance. The United States, for example, has at- cooperation. Engaging m the international arena by in- tempted to establish privileged bilateral relations with each creasing its participation in multilateral institutions, Bra- of these growing engines (in a hub-and-spokes model), zil widens its margins of maneuver, and in doing so has creating committments that could discourage present or structured a network of cooperation among many of the future horizontal links among them. same partners within different forums. 29 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT: THE MULTIPOLAR MOMENT? The IBSA countries have decided to articulate their ini- part of a global strate^ meant to build an international tiatives within the framework of WTO negotiations, they presence by diversifying extemal relations and building say, in order to address their countries' high vulnerabil- alliances with the new states in the South, thus allowing ity to fluctuations in global commodity prices. In their Brazil to have a say in global issues. negotiations, they stress the importance of establishing Even though Brazilian officials resorted to a "cultural a predictable, rule-based, and transparent international discourse" in their diplomacy in the 1970s, recalling Bra- trading system that would enable Southern countries zil's African heritage—Brazil has the largest population of to maximize their development through gains from en- Afro-descendants outside of Africa—new commitments hanced exports. These concerns aside, there is an unde- were necessary to gain the trust of African states, which always demanded that Brazil end diplomatic relations with the South African apartheid govemment. But Brazil did not need to resort to such a drastic action to demonstrate its anti-apartheid commitment. In 1975 Brazil became the first country to rec- ognize Angola's independence and its govemment, and although it never completely broke diplomatic relations with apartheid South Africa, political and commercial relations were kept to a minimum, demonstrating Brazil's commitment to the rest of the con- tinent. Furthermore, Brazil opened embassies, sent high-level missions, developed technical and academic cooperation, and established research centers throughout Africa. The 1970s Luta and former Nigerian presidenl Olusegun Obasanjo at Ihe 2006 Africa-South America Summit were termed the "golden period" of Brazilian-African relations,^ niable geopolitical dimension to the alliance: The IBSA After the end of the apartheid regime, the new South nations have agreed to back each other up in their bids Africa offered an opportunity for mutually beneficial de- as regional representatives to the UN Security Council, velopment and the chance to act jointly in multilateral with Brazil competing with Mexico and Argentina, South groups. Today, in selecting South Africa as its primary Africa with Nigeria and Egypt, and India viath Pakistan African ally, the Brazilian govemment has gone a step be- and Indonesia. yond its traditional strategies, using Mercosur as a negoti- Brazil's relationship with South Africa has been ai the ating tool.