From a western perspective, it’s tempting to believe that either the eurozone debt crisis or the US slowdown is the greatest show on earth. That temptation should be resisted. The greatest show on earth is happening elsewhere: the creation of a southern Silk Road, a network of new “South-South” trading routes connecting Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
As Europe and the US lick their fiscal wounds, the centre of global economic gravity is heading south, and southern trade is becoming turbocharged. Take Brazil. At the moment, 42 per cent of its trade is with the developed world and, of the rest, 22 per cent is with other countries in Latin America. The remaining 36 per cent is what might be described as intercontinental South-South (ISS) trade. That share is set to rise enormously, outstripping trade with the developed world by a factor of eight over the next 40 years. By 2050, ISS trade might account for well over half of all Brazil’s trade.
This extraordinary change is happening because the economic “borders” which have prevented South-South trade from taking off are being dismantled. Only last month, Brazil and China were engaged in talks designed to open China’s markets up to more value-added Brazilian products. Some of the world’s biggest M&A activity is taking place on a South-South axis: the second largest M&A deal in Brazil last year was Sinopec’s $7.1bn acquisition of a large stake in Repsol-YPF. Within a range of new political groupings – of which the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is one of the better examples – being created, there is no seat at the table for western powers.