The perils and promise of the emerging multipolar world

Swarms of night herons sit on a solar photovoltaic panel in Ninghai County, Zhejiang Province, China, in 2021. — Agencies

THE World Bank’s release on May 30 of its latest estimates of national output (up to the year 2022) offers an occasion to reflect on the new geopolitics. The new data underscore the shift from a US-led world economy to a multipolar world economy, a reality that US strategists have so far failed to recognise, accept, or admit.

The World Bank figures make clear that the economic dominance of the West is over. In 1994, the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States) constituted 45.3% of world output, compared with 18.9% of world output in the BRICS countries (Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Russia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates).