The BRICS Has Overtaken the G7 in Global GDP

https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2023/03/27/the-brics-has-overtaken-the-g7-in-global-gdp/

by georgecmu • 3 years ago

84 140 3 years ago

silkroadbriefing.com

082349872349872• 3 years ago

PPP-adjusted GDP

(note that CN had already passed the US in PPP terms a while ago)

eightysixfour2• 3 years ago

While it would not be surprising if China had pass the US due to sheer population size differences alone, there is data that makes it a valid question as to whether that has actually happened or not. On an annual basis, “non-free” countries seem to overstate GDP growth, which has a compounding effect over the long-run, resulting in large gaps between stated and actual GDP.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-...

xtian5• 3 years ago

This conspiracy theory would also have to account for what China is doing with all of the energy it's consuming (and how it's paying for this energy) if it's not manifesting as GDP.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=c...

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-27/saudi-...

potatototoo99• 3 years ago

Looking at the chart it shows every single "partly free" and "not free" country as overstating the GDP, no exception.

A much better explanation is just that measuring GDP by night light is plain dumb.

peppermint_gum4• 3 years ago

I'll be frank, every article that presents BRICS as a real thing is propaganda. It isn't a coincidence that we're seeing a lot more of them since Russia invaded Ukraine.

India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes. South Africa is a failed state and it has negligible influence on the world stage. Brazil is one of the reasons why the term "middle-income trap" was devised.

BRICS members don't even vote in each other's favor in the UN. Russia has received zero meaningful assistance from them during the war in Ukraine.

It's entirely possible that in the future a real anti-western bloc will emerge. But it isn't BRICS.

favorited• 3 years ago

Because it's just a thing that a British economist predicted 2 decades ago. It has no basis in reality.

seanhunter• 3 years ago

Yes. Jim O'Neil (the economist in question) grouped them together in a piece of economic research for Goldman Sachs as examples of fast-growing developing economies that he believed would overtake the G7 in terms of GDP by 2050. [1] They weren't ever imagined as a political grouping that would work together as far as I know.

[1] https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/archive/archive-pdfs/b... is his original paper I believe

sho_hn2• 3 years ago

What's going on in South Africa?

jyscao• 3 years ago

The standard: high violent crime rates and a failing economy.

yamtaddle4• 3 years ago

And when did it get added? Or have I been misreading this for years? I always thought the label was "BRIC".

wkat42422• 3 years ago

Extreme corruption and energy problems leading to riots and concerns over civil war https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/stockp...

wjaugustyn3• 3 years ago

South Africa has a steadily growing GDP, and is one of the least corrupt countries in Africa. GDP has been growing steadily despite issues with the state owned energy provider Eskom. The private sector is robust against government incompetence. It’s not easy to live here, but the opportunities are massive (because the playing field is open if you are skilled).

wesleywt2• 3 years ago

Lots of anti-South African bias on HN. Few of these statements are correct or have any basis in fact. We are not doing great, but doing as bad as the comments suggest.

thriftwy• 3 years ago

It is not unusual that India and China are at odds sometimes. It is however a big mystery why EU and USA get along so well. The globe should feel a little too small for these ones.

throwaway29812• 3 years ago

It is however a big mystery why EU and USA get along so well.

Not if you study their history.

wkat42422• 3 years ago

We don't get along so well. See the data processing agreements that are just ping-ponging in the courts because they are incompatible with EU laws. This causes similar issues with the use of American social media in Europe as the US' concerns about TikTok. It's an uneasy friendship at best.

Interest in NATO was also waning, but of course Putin's recent aggression has revitalized this in a big way.

dotnet00• 3 years ago

EU and USA have their spats, but overall they share relatively similar values and have similar interests in maintaining the general status quo. Both are content enough with their position in the world to not go around fighting over territory.

Lately they're also putting an effort into getting along well because any significant disagreement might bleed into the Ukraine war in some manner.

unity10012• 3 years ago

I'll be frank, every article that presents BRICS as a real thing is propaganda

Huh? Its an actual organization with actual rules and actual institutions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS

Brazil's ex president Rousseff has been elected the president of the bank of that non-existing organization.

https://brazilian.report/liveblog/2023/03/24/dilma-rousseff-...

How does one get elected to be the president of the bank of something that is 'not real'...

BRICS members don't even vote in each other's favor in the UN. Russia has received zero meaningful assistance from them during the war in Ukraine.

False. And even if true, that wouldnt change the existence of the actual organization, its rules, and the arrangements in between countries.

What happens in the UN is mostly PR. Brazil voted to condemn the war in Ukraine because the left-wing segment that Lula and his crowd belongs to condemns all wars, and yet it voted in favor of the Nord Stream investigation.

India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes. South Africa is a failed state and it has negligible influence on the world stage. Brazil is one of the reasons why the term "middle-income trap" was devised......It's entirely possible that in the future a real anti-western bloc will emerge. But it isn't BRICS

This feels like a lot of reality-denial. Or copium at best...

jerf2• 3 years ago

I think it's a bit of both. There is a real organization, with real interests, that are at this point mostly being held together by the desire to no longer be dominated by the US-centric dollar-based system. If the US fades, this unifying principle will disappear over time, and the unity of this organization would as well. Already some of what it has accomplished, to some great fanfare in certain places, strikes me as being nothing more, and nothing less, than that.

It isn't as unified as some would like to present, and it isn't something that the existing world powers should just ignore as irrelevant. It's complicated. It's a complicated time in world history, as transitions are.

kurthr• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Development_Bank

Well, it's on downgrade, but at least it's quite a bit smaller than SVB?

What links them together other than corruption? It looks like a money grab.

_zoidburg_• 3 years ago

I think he's pointing out that BRICS seems to be less strategic than the media makes it out to be. Looking at the topics in their summits they seem to be more of a debate group, but I've only known about them for the past 15 min.

This feels like a lot of reality-denial. Or copium at best...

You should defend your point otherwise it just sounds like your feelings were hurt as well.

user3939382• 3 years ago

Yeah, like go look at the pro-Western Wikipedia article on BRICS which clearly states it's real and has had a summit. The original comment is just plainly false.

peppermint_gum4• 3 years ago

Huh? Its an actual organization with actual rules and actual institutions.

Of course, the organization exists, it wasn't my point.

False.

What is false?

The UN votes? Recent example: UN resolution A/ES-11/L.7 ("Principles of the Charter of the United Nations underlying a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine"). The only countries that voted against are Belarus, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia and Syria. Brazil supported the resolution, while China, India and South Africa abstained.

Lack of assistance? I haven't seen Russia using, say, Chinese missiles or tanks in Ukraine. They import weapons from Iran. It's odd, considering that China is a major arms exporter.

This feels like a lot of reality-denial. Or copium at best...

What part is "reality denial"? Are you saying that India and China aren't having border skirmishes? South Africa is a healthy state? Brazil isn't a middle-income country?

chrisco2552• 3 years ago

I guess? I mean, I know India and China did not sanction Russia and still freely trade with them. Probably Brazil as well? The "Global South" or everything outside of US/UK & Commonwealth/EU/Japan def acts far more independently in global politics while the aforementioned seem to be in lockstep.

unmole3• 3 years ago

Commonwealth

India is part of the Commonwealth. So is Pakistan. The idea that the Commonwealth moves in lockstep is plain silly.

rayiner7• 3 years ago

This is extremely incorrect. India is buying Russian gas and cooperating on payment networks to bypass American sanctions: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-using-swift-global...

The connection between the subcontinent and Russia is longstanding. Socialism was foundational to the post-independence government organization of both India and Bangladesh. My mom grew up reading Russian literature that has been translated into Bangla. Both India and Bangladesh abstained from a UN vote that called for Russia to remove troops from Ukraine: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-explains-why...

As to China, it is all over India and Bangladesh, loaning money for infrastructure projects, etc. China is building the new subway in Dhaka: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1256874.shtml. I had hoped for more alignment of India and Bangladesh with the Anglosphere after the fall of the Soviet Union, but things have absolutely gone in the opposite direction. Russia, China, and India are an almost complete alternative to the west. There is very little that can’t be handled using home grown solutions in one of those three countries, and that list is getting shorter daily.

dralley2• 3 years ago

India is buying Russian gas

There is no expectation that every country in the world cease buying Russian fuels, that's why the price cap was put in place. And India is abiding the price cap. The hysteria about developing countries buying Russian oil/gas is mostly from the media, but so long as Russia is barely hitting breakeven prices then there is little reason for Western governments to care where India or others get their energy from.

Europe is cutting their dependence because it was/is actively being used as a weapon against them.

comonoid• 3 years ago

Someone has to buy Russian gas/oil, as gas/oil prices will skyrocket otherwise. EU and US governments do understand it very well.

selimthegrim7• 3 years ago

There are a lot of people in Bangladesh that are not very happy with Indian domination re: Teesta river, Adani loans, etc. Moreover I think they are more anti-NATO rather than pro-Russia.

peppermint_gum4• 3 years ago

This is extremely incorrect. India is buying Russian gas and cooperating on payment networks to bypass American sanctions

Not participating in western sanctions isn't "providing assistance", it's the default state. That being said, it's interesting that BRICS countries aren't selling weapons to Russia and it has to get them from Iran and North Korea.

908B64B1972• 3 years ago

India is buying Russian gas and cooperating on payment networks to bypass American sanctions

Maybe it's time for the US and it's NATO allies to start restricting visas for nationals from misbehaving allies.

I guess the population won't mind since they can still immigrate/follow opportunities in Russia instead of NATO countries.

TurkishPoptart• 3 years ago

Even Saudi are turning on us (USA). Under the previous administration, they were a semi-reliable partner. This is going to have disastrous consequences for the dollar.

rohit2412• 3 years ago

As to China, it is all over India and Bangladesh, loaning money

Pakistan and Sri Lanka, yes china loans to them. India definitely not. Bangladesh I am not sure.

arroz3• 3 years ago

You share a link from Chinese state mídia lol

pphysch8• 3 years ago

The five stages of grief.

There is an enormous anti-Washington bloc. So what, it isn't perfectly encapsulated in a single organization yet. That's natural due to its rapid growth.

refulgentis2• 3 years ago

Motte and Bailey. This is just vibes

peppermint_gum4• 3 years ago

The five stages of grief.

You're right but not in the way you think. Russia is desperate to prove they aren't isolated internationally.

onepointsixC3• 3 years ago

India being characterized as a member of an Anti Western bloc seems rather far fetched considering their partnership with Washington, against another member of that block (China).

Zigurd2• 3 years ago

By "bloc" do you mean allies who would actually commit military forces to a war? Tributary puppet states like the Soviet Bloc?

Russia's list of allies:

1. Belarus (maybe, on a good day)

China's list of allies:

seizethecheese• 3 years ago

The argument here misses the point. This BRICS isn’t so much a political block as symbol of diffusing economic power.

Since geopolitical power follows economic power, this is a leading indicator of the waning of American hegemony.

lenkite2• 3 years ago

"India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes."

Border skirmishes with sticks and fists actually - commanders on both sides firmly respect the "no firearms" rule. The only deaths were in the 2020 flare up. Since then, the recent encounters have been quite literally "body checking" the border with muscle.

Yet the current skirmishes and any future skirmishes have not and will not affect ongoing trade and investment.

India still has $119 billion trade with China. China is India's top trading partner in 2023. There is also significant Chinese investment in India - Oppo, Vivo, Fosun, etc.

Meanwhile Russia continues to be the single largest supplier of crude oil for India, which is converted into petrol and diesel at refineries, for a fifth straight month by supplying more than one-third of all oil India imported.

India is ambivalent/negative to Ukraine and generally abstains from all US proposals that are anti-Russian. Ukraine had voted against India several times in the UNSC and also armed Pakistan and this is remembered by the Indian government.

Some Americans appear to mistake BRICS as some sort of political/military alliance. It is not - its a trade/economy focused alliance whose founding impetus was the 2008 economic crisis where the world paid the price for bad US economic policies.

There is also a movement away from the US dollar to other national currencies in BRICS nations - though India is not a part of this movement - the US is India's second largest trading partner after all.

selimthegrim7• 3 years ago

Ukraine had voted against India several times in the UNSC and also armed Pakistan and this is remembered by the Indian government.

Which is why Imran Khan’s pro Russia position was so stupid

steponlego• 3 years ago

China and Russia are partners, allies. Are you one of those people who sits there furiously praying they’ll fight WWIII against each other? It’s delusional.

Mountain_Skies• 3 years ago

BRICS members don't even vote in each other's favor in the UN.

The United States is frequently at odds with its G7 partners when it comes to UN votes, especially those involving the Middle East. Does that mean the G7 is fake?

alxlaz• 3 years ago

Lots of comments here are trying to poke holes in the parent comment, and missing its substance as a consequence.

There is, first and foremost, the elephant in the room which everyone ignores because everyone's thinking Russia these days. That elephant is China, which acts as the extremely valuable missing link to G7 economies. China and the G7 group are wholy interdependent, whether they're willing to admit it or not. One without the other, at least at this moment in time, would be Chapter 1 of a dystopian novel about societal collapse. We've had a whiff of that during the supply chain crisis in the pandemic -- and that was just some clogged logistics.

Anyone taking this as proof that BRICS is now its own thing that can stand on its own is just as wrong as anyone thinking that G7 is its own thing that can stand on its own. They're not. And any factor that's straining the relation between the two blocs (via China) is not likely to be viewed with wholly favourable eyes by either parties, even though some of them can't acknowledge that publicly due to ideological reasons, or are happy to let it be for as long as it causes more trouble on the other side.

Second, lots of the economic activity that happens inside BRICS is decidedly not happening in the "cooperation" side of the cooperation-competition-conflict framework, or within any unreservedly friendly quadrant of any framework. Russia, for instance, is a major supplier for the Indian defense industry not so much because of historical socialist ties, but because it's the only major supplier it can realistically deal with without major restrictions. It has a hot border dispute with China, another hot border dispute with a regional ally (Pakistan) of another major supplier (US and the NATO bloc), and has fought real wars with both in the last sixty years.

Russia and China aren't sharing fatherly influence over India and Bangladesh, or over post-Soviet Asia, they're competing for influence in much of it. Just like China and Brazil are competing for regional influence in some of South America, just like China and South Africa are competing for regional influence in some of Africa.

Third, people are also forgetting an important lesson from recent history: on the eve of World War II, Franco-German commercial relations were extraordinary. Actually, Germany had excellent trade relations with most of Europe. Most of the arguments about BRICS today readily translate to FIGUC (France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, Czechoslovakia) cca. 1936, including caveats like they're backing opposite parties in some regional conflicts/civil war. Economic interests and common enemies are transitory; geopolitical aspirations are far more durable.

This isn't to say that BRICS is "not a real alliance". It is, it's bound by real economic relations, and there is plenty of competition within the G7 bloc as well. However, its potential for global cooperation outside the economic sphere is greatly diminished by the current state of mutual foreign relations, and competition, between its members. BRICS cannot, at least for now, achieve any more than G7 could've achieved back when Germany was trying to widen its military supply sources so as not to depend on France because there was a real chance they might into it over Alsace, the way India is now trying to widen its military supply sources so as not to depend on China or the US because there's a real chance they might get into it over LoCs in Kashmir.

marcosdumay2• 3 years ago

It's entirely possible that in the future a real anti-western bloc will emerge. But it isn't BRICS.

What a bullshit level of US centrism. The BRICS is not an anti-US (and yes, I'm sure you meant US) bloc. It's a pro-middle-income country bloc.

There is no reason to align on issues not related to middle-income countries economics.

kamaal• 3 years ago

>India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes.

As an Indian speaking very frankly India and China are frenemies. There is going to be no major war between these two. Contrary to whatever it looks from a distance, it won't.

India and China are very likely to indulge in intense co-operative competition with Russia as an another mediating partner. In many ways this is already the case.

I also believe over time a similar equation will emerge between India and Pakistan and China playing the same role as Russia in this case.

Yizahi• 3 years ago

Anti-"western" block will come and go in droves as long as they are petulant children blocks, built on the contrarianism - "just make everything opposite of what west thinks and does". And since sociopaths who usually come to power with similar ideology are usually incompetent, these blocks and countries will continue to fail like clockwork.

tpoacher• 3 years ago

Say a term enough times and it gets established by people who repeat it. Like "nanoparticles", or "data science" or "codes".

Ironically, by venting about how BRICS is not a thing, you've helped a tiny bit more into making it a thing for people who read your post. That's just how it works.

skywal_l• 3 years ago

The article in not about BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) which still has an aggregate GPD a little more than half the G7 one (at least according to a cursory google search) but about BRICS-extended which include a lot of petro-states and south-east asian countries.

An interesting article but the title is clickbait.

somenameforme2• 3 years ago

It's only referring to BRICS. You are looking at nominal GDP, and not Purchasing Power Adjusted (PPP). If a dollar goes twice as far in China, then their nominal GDP would need to be doubled to get the "real" comparable value. That's what PPP is.

calgarymicro• 3 years ago

I thought it was the other way around? Nominal was supposed to be better for comparing overall economic heft among countries, while PPP is better for internal measures and comparisons in living standards (GDP PPP per capita for example)?

zvmaz2• 3 years ago

My country wants to join the BRICS, but every single person wants to flee the country, preferably to the West. It's our "American dream".

scythe• 3 years ago

BRICS is an acronym. You can't join it. There is an associated trade entity, which ironically was created in response to the acronym.

zvmaz2• 3 years ago

See : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-15/brics-deb...

arroz3• 3 years ago

You are correct but you can join it

South Africa wasn’t a part of it initially

Argentina wants to join it I think

But honestly, there isn’t much value in joining it. BRICS is basically china, take china out and it is a minuscule thing. And there isn’t even much cooperation between BRICS countries, it’s just a bloc to make china look bigger than it actually is

marcosdumay2• 3 years ago

Well, I believe that's a requirement.

selimthegrim7• 3 years ago

Is Algeria running out of water?

arroz3• 3 years ago

BRICS is not a thing, they are different countries with different interests, not allies

albertopv• 3 years ago

So sad that so many people do not despise autocratic governments for their countries.

The BRICS Has Overtaken the G7 in Global GDP

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