Why India is better placed to lead the Global South than China

The Global South has become more than just a buzz word in global geopolitics over the last few years. Serious world leaders have made references to the Global South at various instances indicating its rising importance. As its significance continues to grow, the race to lead this group is bound to intensify with India and China as the primary candidates for the top job.

It is pertinent to understand that the concept of the Global South is not new — in 1955, at the Asia-Africa conference in Indonesia, such a gathering first took place. While at the time the shared issues remained mainly dealing with the aftereffects of colonialism and racial discrimination, the issues have now matured into dealing with the new multipolar world order without being bracketed forcefully on one side. The Global South has a shared grief of being colonised for centuries by the Western powers, unwanted foreign interference in national politics as well as poverty — as a consequence of their wealth being looted by respective colonisers.

As these young countries are maturing, they seem to be gaining a strong, influential voice which is consequential in shaping outcomes of geopolitical challenges that the world faces today. As they begin to emerge out of poverty, and continue on the path of development, these countries offer open, largely untapped markets for businesses as consumption for global goods continues to rise. However, they do continue the need to have a unified voice and a leader who is able to echo their collective perspective on global platforms to powerful leaders. This is where India and China come in. Both countries appear to be competing for this role. However, over the years, only India is likely to stand the test of time and likely to succeed, if it plays its cards right. Below, I explain how.

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First, the Global South geographically represents the group of countries, most of which are either emerging economies or under-developed, which lie south of the Tropic of Cancer, which roughly divides the habitable world into two parts. Just by its sheer geography, China does not qualify as a country of the Global South. India on the other hand falls on this line and also exercises dominance on the vast Indian ocean through which runs the Equator, which divides the Earth into two equal halves. Another historical fact is that China was never outrightly colonised; and it only ceded some territories to various Western forces in the nineteenth century. This makes China’s journey unrelatable to the shared journey of emerging from the long-term impact of colonialism which much of the Global South experiences. India, on the other hand, has lived through centuries of being colonised and has now made its place in the top five economies of the world — a success story most colonized countries aim to emulate.

Another differentiator is that China has played too much of its hand too soon. On its rise to become the second largest world economy, China has overburdened countries with unrealistic debt, in exchange for assets of national security of the respective countries under the guise of financing infrastructure projects. This has created deep mistrust for China in most of the growing economies. Their expansionist stance in the South China Sea, parts of Africa and the salami slicing strategy with neighbours has made China appear hostile, let alone cooperative.

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While there were a few decades in contemporary world history where the rise of China through economic reforms was watched admirably, the tables have turned as the world witnesses misuse of their economic power to bully. In other words, China compensates for the trade opportunities, lower cost of commodities and large-scale financing that it offers to countries by leveraging their national security assets and fulfilling geopolitical agendas for itself and this has made the world wary of welcoming it into their homelands.

Additionally, much to its non-democratic character, China is intolerant of foreign businesses to operate on its soil, let alone in sectors which are sensitive. Even with its own businesses, the Chinese Communist Party maintains a death-grip leaving no room for independence or a differing opinion from the leadership.

In sharp contrast, India offers an inclusive leadership, rooted in civilisational confidence. It provides generous opportunities to the Global South to share the leadership table; for instance, in the G20 Summit hosted by India in 2023, it led the effort to admit the African Union to the G20. India in the last decade led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has also been a first responder in times of humanitarian crisis — as in the case of providing vaccines to several countries of the Global South, or bringing back citizens from crisis-hit areas as part of evacuation efforts. India may not yet have excess funds to pump into blanket infrastructure projects in other countries or even the intention to build military bases around the world like the United States, but it does offer a powerful friendship for nations looking to play a balancing act.

India does not need to sway the Global South in its favour; this will materialise naturally with time as nations place more and more importance on balancing the new multipolar world order versus being swayed by an expansionist, agenda-driven one. Yes, China will still see a red-carpet welcome in many nations of the Global South, since money is the primary influencing factor for many of the economically weak nations; however, in the long term, when India is at a size of providing this monetary assistance, I expect this red carpet for China to be rolled back pretty quickly.

At this moment, India simply needs to engage continuously and unrelentingly with the nations of the Global South with a razor-sharp focus on localised as well as geopolitical issues of importance. India is destined to emerge as a natural leader.

The writer is an author and political communications expert. She has written four best-selling books. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.