BRICS ECONOMIC SUMMIT: Laying the theoretical and practical foundations for a new world economic order
Under the double impact of the world economic crisis and the phenomenal rise of the BRICS economic resurgence, the meeting of the members of the BRICS group in Sanya, China, on April 13, 2011, was designed to map out concrete strategies for the theoretical and practical foundations for a new more just and humane world economic order.
As Professor Dr. John Shijian Mo wrote, “The trend of international economic interdependence has grown stronger, and so has that of regional economic cooperation. International commerce and trade have become vital for all countries wishing to achieve a fast and significant economic growth within the legal framework of the WTO”, which has assisted the BRICS nations to achieve rapid economic development.
Russia, India, China, Brazil, South Africa are economic power blocks and their meeting under review, has addressed substantial issues that will aid the all-round economic development of member-states. South Africa was invited to join the organization last year.
The BRICS states have a total population of about 3 billion people and are strategically located in the five continents of the world. India will host the next meeting in New Delhi.
There is need for the High Contracting parties to harmonize the legal frame-work for international sale of goods and international commercial regulations.
In a joint declaration, the BRICS countries reaffirmed their adherence to existing international economic conventions. While emphasizing the economic potentials of its members, they promised to work out strategies to harness their human and natural resources to mutual advantage.
The BRICS organization has the trappings of an anti-Western body, which is poised to act as a counter-weight to the Euro-America hegemony of world affairs since 1945.
Economically, the group promises to arrest the volatility in commodities prices and the flow of liquidity around the world, especially in the currency system in order to guarantee stability in the international financial order and a fairer economic multilateralism.
All these effort will lead to a shift in economic power from the old system to the new. Observers say that the intractable US deficit policy strengthens the BRICS argument that the international economic system can no longer rely on the SDI arrangement. China is openly canvassing that its currency must find a place in the world currency basket.
Diplomatically, the BRICS group condemned NATO military action in Libya. The group thinks that dialogue and not military action should be more appropriate in solving international conflicts.
It can be recalled that President Hu Jintao took this position recently, when President Sarkozy visited Beijing.
Professor M.D Nalapert recalled that during the Bandung Conference, Nehru and Chou en Lai had muted the idea of a China/India economic cooperation.
However, bilateral relations were blurred by antiquated rivalries in pursuit of narrow interests. Professor Nalapat said that there was need to create a fairer world system, instead of sustaining by force, a post- Second World war international system in which only a few states control the international system, while others play second fiddle.
Professor Huang Yiping of Peking University told CCTV News that the financial system in place is no longer reflective of modern-day realities in a changed world.
In a new Asia, IT cooperation is on a firm footing with India leading the pack. In China, the city of Nanjing has become the manufacturing center of the world.
Although the joint declaration is not very precise as to the mode of operation, it enables observers to assess things from different perspectives and gain some insights as to the ideological orientation of BRICS.
Certain basic principles are discernible regarding the harmonization of methods of payment, international banking and financing, foreign investment regulations, foreign ventures,, licensing agreements and counter trade.
All these will be based on non-discrimination and it is envisaged that there will be a mechanism for the resolution of international trade conflicts.
Franco/British military actions in Libya carry the face of a new imperialism. The BRICS association point to new international cooperation in the economic field and there is a determination to redeem the world economy from the throes of disastrous collapse, which would lead to social dislocation in most nations including Europe and the United States.
All NATO member-states may wish to recall that the Brian/Kellogg Pact of 1928 outlawed war as an instrument of national policy.
A new world-state is in the process of formation. It was Joachim of Calabria (1145-1202), an Italian mystic and acetic, who once propagated the idea.
The BRICS will soon receive applications from other states, which cannot find meaningful roles in the present United Nations Organisation.
It is both remarkable and ironic that BRICS member-states are made up of nations that suffered under colonial and oppressive regimes. They will regard their association very seriously as an instrument of consolidation after traumatic centuries and decades of man’s inhumanity to man.
This feeling of solidarity informs their unity of purpose to overturn the existing international order that tends to perpetuate inequality among members of the “international community”.
In our discussions at BOSAS INTERNATIONAL LAW BUREAU, Abuja on the BRICS meeting, members wondered why Nigeria, which received her independence in 1960, has not recorded an impressive socio-economic feat to enable her to be recognized by the comity of nations, while South Africa, which got her independence under two decades ago has become a force to reckon with in the world.
The Bureau arrived at the conclusion that three groups of operatives have been responsible for Nigeria’s under-development.
In his speech during FESTAC’ 77, General Olusegun Obasanjo identified the following groups, the commercial trading post agents, who have helped foreign interests to exploit the commanding heights of the Nigerian economy since independence, the bureaucratic trading post agents in the civil service, who are corrupt and bend government policies to suit the highest bidder and the intellectual trading post agents, who uncritically apply Oxbridge theories and IMF/World bank permutations on statecraft. All these have had a negative, damaging impact on Nigeria’s forward march.
It was further agreed that mediocrity is the bane of Nigeria’s stagnation. A bunch of historically entrenched group is regularly re-cycled in government. They do not bring fresh ideas to bear on government policies. They are used to “business as usual”.
No nation succeeds remarkably if the unpatriotic, untutored people exhibit philistinism and corrupt attitudes in governance.
The legal, political and economic under-development of Nigeria after fifty years of independence has become embarrassing.
WE, THE PEOPLE, must ask ourselves whether good roads, electricity, a good wage and a secure nation should continue to elude us as a nation.
Why must we keep listening to half-wits, who do not know about the dynamics of statecraft? They continue to say what they do not mean and do not mean what they say.
Brazil, South Africa and India have become manufacturing nations. All we do is import everything from pin to airplanes with our petro-dollars. China successfully feeds over one billion citizens, houses and educates them from primary school to university. Russia has clipped the wings of its oligarchs, who fraudulently tried to corner Russian public wealth.
Whoever wins the elections in Nigeria must re-organise our neo-colonial state. We must transform the nation into a Confederal Republic, where hard work, honesty, patriotism and social justice become the
corner-stone of state policy. There are knowledgeable men and women in Nigeria, who can turn the nation around.
We need profound scientific thinkers who will not violate the people’s trust. We do not need thugs in political office, who are afflicted by Mormonism. There are faithful, God-fearing citizens, who pray for national resurgence. They ask for God’s mercy so that we shall be saved from the calamities that will soon befall the human race.
These are the Gentiles I have written very often about, who will inherit the Earth.
