China and EU can lead global energy transition

By: Azhar Azam

Just more than a year before the adoption of the landmark Paris Climate Agreement, Chinese President Xi Jinping and former U.S. President Barack Obama made a historic announcement in Beijing on climate change, extending their commitment to a successful agreement in Paris and marking a new era of multilateral climate diplomacy.

The two leaders in 2016, on the eve of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, formally ratified the treaty. Commemorating the momentous moment, Obama said " … where countries like China and the United States are prepared to show leadership … it is possible for us to create a world that is more secure, more prosperous and more free than the one that was left for us."

But within months of this unprecedented cooperation, U.S. President Donald Trump in his first term withdrew from the deal, seen by world leaders as an act of "denying science (and) turning your backs on multilateralism." The broad-based multilateralism is again under strain after Washington for the second time pulled out of the Paris Agreement, urging other major powers such as China and the EU to fill the void by undertaking the role of climate leadership.

As part of the EU quest of finding new climate partners, French Minister for Ecological Transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher recently visited Beijing and found "points of convergence" including "commitment to the Paris Agreement" and "multilateralism." "At a time when science is doubted … impact of climate deregulation … is contested … it is important for the European Union and China to assume their responsibilities."

With the U.S. continuing to retreat from its pledges, China could be a valuable EU partner on climate change and the acceleration of global transition to green technology. This was highlighted in Pannier-Runacher's comments, which hailed China's "dynamism" and urged all countries to learn from its "quickness" on renewable energy technologies.

China, as a leader in green technology, offers significant opportunities of cooperation for Europe on reducing carbon emissions through clean energy transition. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, 92.5 percent of global energy capacity added in 2024 came from renewable energy, at 585 gigawatts (GW). China accounted for 373.6 GW or about 64 percent of new global renewable capacity with significant contributions in solar, wind, bioenergy and hydropower.

Beijing is also the world's largest investor in clean energy. Per research provider Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), China's total investment estimated at $818 billion in green technology last year was greater than the combined investment of the U.S., EU and the UK. Of the total 16.2 million employment opportunities created in renewable energy globally in 2023, 7.4 million jobs were generated in China. It is also the "dominant equipment manufacturer" in the two most dynamic renewable energy sectors: wind and solar photovoltaics (PV).

The world's second largest economy is set to cement its position as a global clean energy leader. After surpassing its end-of-the-decade 1,200 GW target for solar PV and wind six years early, China is forecast to be the home of every other megawatt of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide by 2030. The International Energy Agency's Executive Director Fatih Birol summed up Beijing's stunning lead in two words: "China, solar."

China's ascendancy in renewable energy may be astonishing but it isn't shocking. Several decades ago, Beijing identified clean energy industries as strategic, directed investments toward them and introduced policies that would promote the deployment of renewables and manufacture of those technologies. Initiatives such as Green Electricity Certificates are accelerating the push of de-carbonization and sustainable development domestically; China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is hastening the adoption of clean technology internationally through development of green infrastructure.

Both Beijing and Brussels, as major global energy consumers and with their shared interests and goals toward green, low-carbon development, have a great potential to work together and fast-track their clean energy transition. With China's extensive experience in project development and technology innovation and the EU's ambitious climate goals and proximity to Africa – cooperation between the two sides can meaningfully contribute to climate goals, energy transition and green industrialization, unlocking matchless opportunities for market expansion and job creation as well as advancing Africa's own energy future.

China and the EU have a long history of cooperation on climate change. The China-EU Partnership on Climate Change, signed in 2005, was one such high-level political framework that sought to strengthen cooperation and dialogue on low-carbon technologies with a focus on the "development and deployment of clean energy technology."

Established in the China-EU Leaders' Meeting in 2020, the China-EU High-Level Environment and Climate Dialogue (HECD) builds on this partnership. Realizing interconnected challenges of climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and desertification, both sides in the fifth HECD last year recognized the urgency of global climate action to "respect the goals of the Paris Agreement and the targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework," agreeing to intensify cooperation on the environment, water and circular economy and jointly contributing to a multilateral process of climate governance.

In contrast to the U.S. that has frequently deviated from its commitments, China has remained steadfast in honoring its promises with the world. Once Trump in his first term had ditched the Paris Agreement, Beijing pledged to stand by its responsibilities on climate change, and China and the EU after the 20th China-EU Summit in 2018 underlined their "strong determination" to fight climate change and demonstrate global leadership, showing commitment with multilateralism.

As Washington's actions threaten to weaken climate action and multilateralism as well as aggravate the climate crisis, green cooperation between Beijing and Brussels is essential to low-emission transition, develop new technologies and achieve sustainable development goals, a universal call to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030.

*My article that first appeared in "CGTN"

Who is 'real, imminent threat' in Asia-Pacific?

By: Azhar Azam

On Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used Shangri-La Dialogue – a high-level multilateral platform for exchanging views and promoting cooperation among defense officials on regional security – to stoke instability by imploring Asia-Pacific countries to boost defense spending, allowing Washington to make the region a U.S. "priority theater," and portraying China as a threat.

His address once again revealed a marked difference between the approaches of two major global powers, the U.S. and China, toward peace and stability. Beijing has consistently stated that cooperation benefits both sides while confrontation harms the two countries, that it will safeguard multilateralism and is committed to building a peaceful world.

On Sunday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to Hegseth's speech, saying that "China urges the U.S. to fully respect the efforts of countries in the region to maintain peace and stability, stop deliberately destroying the peaceful and stable environment cherished by the region."

In recent years, the U.S. has sought to reconstruct its "hub-and-spoke" model, centered on bilateral security arrangements, to assemble an integrated and interconnected network of mini-lateral alliances such as the Quad and AUKUS to counter what it perceives as growing Chinese diplomatic and military influence. Hegseth's address and meeting with ASEAN defense ministers focused on advancing this U.S. conflict-laden agenda in the region.

Moreover, as U.S. President Donald Trump is intimidating America's neighbors with his expansionist plans and threatening to suppress ASEAN's economy with unilateral tariffs, Hegseth's claim at Shangri-La Dialogue that Washington "shares a vision of peace and stability, of prosperity and security" with the Asia-Pacific seems untenable.

The track record of the U.S.-centered alliances in destabilizing regions – rather than delivering stability and establishing deterrence – is remarkable. From foreign invasions and interventions to arms sales and fabricated groupings, America has been fueling conflicts and undermining regional peace. With Washington increasingly seen as a "protection racket" by its own allies, the country's reliability as a credible security provider is blowing to bits.

America's military alliances and actions of arming the regional countries could stoke an arms race in the Asia-Pacific with AUKUS risking nuclear proliferation, becoming a major source of insecurity and undermining peace and stability of one of the world's most economically vibrant regions.

The U.S. Department of Defense annual report 2024 also accused Chinese officials of running "information operations and disinformation campaign to mischaracterize AUKUS as a vehicle for nuclear proliferation and threat to regional stability" and attempted to trivialize the significance of the Global Security Initiative (GSI), contending it didn't "articulate" a framework or mechanism.

The foreign ministers of Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as a growing chorus of other countries in the Pacific, have openly sounded the alarm on the nuclear pact and the risk of arms race and nuclear proliferation. Since the release of the GSI, China has deepened cooperation in international peacemaking, counterterrorism, climate change, disaster prevention and combating transnational crime. It has also promoted security-related exchanges under existing frameworks such as the Group of 20, Shanghai Cooperation Organization and East Asia and Lancang-Mekong Cooperation. The support of 120 countries and international organizations demonstrates the GSI is committed to its core principles of comprehensive security, adhering to the Charter of the United Nations and pursuing conflict resolution through dialogue.

Growing uncertainty around Trump's policies is drawing a wave of reconciliation in the region as exemplified by the recent ASEAN-GCC-China Summit in Kuala Lumpur this May and the 11th China-Japan-ROK Trilateral Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Tokyo this March. Tokyo's and Seoul's endorsement to promote "future-oriented cooperation" and respond "jointly" to shared international challenges unveiled a distinct intent to increase understanding, protect livelihoods and tackle common threats.

As major international powers, China and the U.S. bear the responsibility to stabilize their economic relationship to deliver benefits to both peoples and support the wider global economy. They both also have a substantial interest in boosting military ties to strengthen global security and thwart shared threats such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation, transnational crimes, drug trafficking and climate change.

If the U.S. doesn't really believe in bullying and coercion, deems itself a Pacific power and is committed to regional peace and prosperity, then it should stop paddling false narratives about China, respect the Asian country's territorial integrity and deepen strategic engagement with Beijing to prevent the region from tipping into an endless arms race. Only then can America claim to be a guarantor of regional peace.

The shared commitment of China and the U.S. to an improved military-to-military relationship has historically resulted in an agreement to work together on settlement of conflicts that contribute to regional and global instability, counter-piracy operations, natural disasters and threats of nuclear terrorism with cooperation expanding to law enforcement, counter-narcotics, counterterrorism and combating cybercrime.

As the U.S. ditches cooperation for strategic competition with China, this shift of focus weakens efforts to build a joint response against global challenges and strengthens transnational organized crime that thrives in destabilized regions.

Should Washington alter its perception of Beijing and make military ties a stabilizing force in their bilateral relationship, China and the U.S. not only can prevent an unintended escalation but also coordinate on shared challenges and pool their resources to promote peace and common development.

*My article that first appeared in "CGTN"

Great battle of narratives in Latin America

By: Azhar Azam

In US, China’s engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has been seen as a threat to Washington’s strategic position globally with recommendations of employing military, technological and economic might to force its neighbors into severing economic ties with Beijing. Secretary of State Marco Rubio himself recently travelled to several regional states to counter China’s influence and prevent them from building critical infrastructure in cohorts with Beijing.

But with China and LAC leaders at a forum in Beijing agreeing to bolster ties and support a “fair, transparent and rules-based multilateral trade system” and Brazilian’s President Lula da Silva urging China and his country to oppose “unilateralism, protectionism and bullying,” in a densely veiled swipe at America, the gathering sent a strong message about its reluctance to rupture relations with Beijing.

In defiance of Trump’s global trade war and crackdown on migration, the bloc has been promoting an inside reconciliation to deliver a collective response. In last month’s Celac (Community of Latin America and the Caribbean States) summit in Tegucigalpa, regional leaders called on the alliance to “reinvent itself” to face up to Washington’s renewed “imperialist domination” efforts, protect against unilateral actions and develop initiatives in trade, science and technology, rejecting “racism, human rights violations and the criminalization of the Latin American brothers.”

For a region that has been immersed in a low growth trap and where connectivity is crucial for a resilient economic future, the forum provided an opportunity to LAC to showcase its concerns on America’s protectionist policies and pursue its ambition of projecting itself a dynamic geopolitical and economic player through cooperation with China.

In recent years, China-Latin America relationship has strengthened as two-thirds of regional countries have joined Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Beijing has emerged as biggest trading partners of key regional nations including Brazil, Chile and Peru. Trump’s threats of taking over Panama Canal by force handed over him an ephemeral success as Panama withdrew from China’s foreign policy drive; Colombia's joining of the Chinese mammoth infrastructure blueprint tainted the US president’s’ neo-Monroe Doctrine of considering the Western Hemisphere as America’s exclusive sphere of influence.

Testifying before Senate Armed Services Committee, Commander US Southern Command Admiral Alvin Holsey said that China was “using the BRI to set the theater and expand its access to rare earth metals and control of ports, space facilities and telecommunications infrastructure for a potential dual civilian-military purpose.”

While much of interpretation is overblown with US coercive policies such as tariffs and aid cuts facilitating Beijing to outmaneuver Washington in a strategic competition, America's own approach is driven by a craving to seize Latin America’s rare earth metals. State Department’s 100-day fact sheet itself pursues to draw regional countries away from BRI and securing minerals for the US national defense and commercial applications. This strategic chicanery surrounding US practice approach is pushing regional countries toward China.

As Trump’s stopgap policy challenges America's geopolitical and economic dominance, the forum is turning into a symbol of cooperation and launchpad of introducing initiatives and formulating action plans to advance China’s vision of building a “community with a shared future” as highlighted by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s commitment to provide a 66 billion yuan credit line to support the region's development, extension of visa-free arrangement to five countries, import more products and channel further investments.

Since the turn of the century, the China-LAC relationship has grown at a fast clip, bringing a promising economic opportunity to the region. Nearly 200 BRI megaprojects worth more than $100 billion were estimated to have been implemented over the last decade; bilateral trade in 2024 leapt 6% to more than $518 billion from barely $14 billion in 2000. By 2023, China’s investments in the region had exceeded $600 billion.

One recent example of China-LAC cooperation is the development of Chancay Port in Peru. The project – set to become a new logistical order and strategic transshipment hub and accelerate trade across the Pacific for Peruvian Blueberries, Brazilian soy and Chilean copper – would rewire hemispherical trade, intensifying the China-US rivalry. Yet the Peruvian government is seemingly willing to take the risk even though it antagonizes Washington. If there were any, Trump’s tariffs and punitive measures have encouraged Lima and others into connecting with China-built port.

Chinese projects including upgradation of the Dominican Republic’s electric grid, deep-water port on Grand Bahama and “new infrastructure” such as artificial intelligence, renewable energy, smart cities, and 5G technology across the region have rattled the US about growing China’s penetration and alleged cyber threats from Beijing; these fears aren’t holding regional leaders back from pursuing their economic and social development in partnership with China.

Studies show LAC’s embracement of China as a partner has benefited the region with advances in infrastructure development and trade and investment. Acknowledging the BRI has played an important role in Latin America, they predict that Beijing has signed almost 1,000 bilateral agreements with LAC countries to facilitate and promote trade, investment and cooperation across a wide array of sectors.

China’s expanding influence is sounding alarm in the US yet it cannot just shift the blame on Beijing as Washington for decades has put the region in a pigeonhole and forgotten it. Trump’s depreciatory comments, expansionist agenda and renaming of Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America would further complicate America’s ties with region and hasten its drive of seeking more autonomy in its foreign policy including through intensive engagement with Beijing.

While Trump administration’s belittling, threatening and domineering posture has gained some achievement; not all LAC countries will toe America’s line with most of them alongside China advocating for an inclusive economic globalization, multilateralism and multilateral trading system as well as opposing unilateralism. In this battle of narratives between China and US, latter's narrative seems to have dominated the former's.

*My article that first appeard in the "Express Tribune"

BRICS: a challenge to Western-led institutional architecture?

By: Azhar Azam

As the Western-led governance system experiences an incessant erosion of credibility over its own predatory and protectionist policies, leading to more international turbulence and slower global growth — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, at the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, offered a framework of cooperation to protect interests of the Global South and develop a joint response to the new, cascading challenges, helping contending with America's actions to erect trade barriers and grow at the expense of development in developing nations.

President Donald Trump of the US has imposed indiscriminate tariffs on almost the entire world, not seen in more than a century. These "fake" taxes reveal that the US can no longer claim to be an anchor of the international economic system or guarantor of free trade and fears competition, which could drive up innovation in the country and have benefited America and Americans for decades.

This "rent-seeking" approach could weigh on the global economy and the US economy. According to the IMF, a burst of tariffs introduced by Trump on April 2 could lower US growth to 1.8% in 2025, a 0.9% decline from the Fund's January forecast. This could prompt the IMF to call for an urgent trade policy settlement among major players.

At this watershed moment when tariff-induced uncertainty is spiking off the charts, strengthening multilateralism is one of the key means to promote development across regions since it represents a majority of the nations and encourages them to work through joint consultation and shared understanding, raising a collective voice against unlawful tariffs and sanctions.

Due to its core principles, including consensus-based decision-making, fostering development and equality and modernising and reforming global multilateral and governance institutions, BRICS has witnessed an exponential expansion over recent years. Several emerging economies, such as Indonesia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran, and potentially Saudi Arabia, are now part of the organisation.

BRICS expansion will significantly elevate bloc's influence internationally, bring inclusivity to a fragmented world and contribute to stability and development especially in the Middle East and North Africa, which is grappled with enormous security and economic challenges over Trump's threats of taking over Gaza, military action on Tehran and tariff-driven recession in oil markets.

The organisation is accused of seeking to "avowedly" challenge the Western-led economic governance institutions and establish an alternate to the existing international order, but this argument lacks the necessary rigour. BRICS instead envisages amputating systemic bias against the Global South from the current global order and strengthening it by promoting multilateralism, reforming international institutions and stepping up efforts to build a more effective, inclusive and representative multilateral system.

Wang's proposals, indeed, are consistent with the UN whose Pact of the Future aims at transforming global governance and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at last year BRICS summit emphasised the grouping's role in strengthening multilateralism for global development and security, warned of widening digital divide, admitted lack of Global South's representation in the Bretton Wood institutions and sought the alliance to help craft a more equitable global finance system, boost climate action, improve access to technology and work toward peace.

While the bloc's Contingent Reserve Arrangement contributes to the robustness of the global financial system and complements IMF support mechanisms, its New Development Bank seeks to leverage proven and emerging transformative technologies to deploy clean and renewable energy and build smart transport and logistics projects in partner states that decouple economic growth from environmental degradation and pollution.

BRICS expansion allows countries such as Ethiopia access to technology, bridging the digital gap; the organisation advocates resolution of disputes through diplomacy, inclusive dialogues, conflict-prevention efforts, tolerance and peaceful coexistence through an UN-centred, reinvigorated and reformed multilateral system. The bloc's increased alignment on cultural exchanges and humanitarian projects enhances its profile as a multifaceted organisation.

What the world witnesses today is a consequence of US nationalistic policies, seeking to undermine global peace and upend once-harmonious globalisation for self-centric geopolitical and economic gains. This arrogant and protectionist approach and failure of Western-dominated institutional architecture to address contemporary challenges such as the Ukraine and Middle East crises have triggered disillusionment in the Global South with the so-called liberal order.

In the form of BRICS, the Global South, particularly marginalised countries, has discovered a platform where they are treated with a spirit featuring mutual respect, openness, inclusiveness and solidarity. It is gaining traction here, where they could collectively raise their voice on global injustices and economic disparities, become part of international policymaking processes, actively participate in shaping a fair and equitable economic order, practise genuine multilateralism and bring back globalisation from the brink.

With BRICS countries representing about half of the world population, 36% of territory, 39% of world GDP (compared to G7's 28.4%) and 23% of international trade — the alliance can leverage its resources and economic and demographic heft to even out global imbalances and an overly West-leaning international order. Increasing trade and deepening economic integration while demonstrating unity, upholding multilateralism and improving global governance could offset Trump's assault on the monetary sovereignty of Global South, contribute to peace and stability and pursue shared development across the developing world.

*My article that first appeared in the Express Tribune:

China-CEEC expo is reiteration of Beijing's commitment to openness

By: Azhar Azam

The 4th China-CEEC (Central and Eastern European Countries) Expo & International Consumer Goods Fair is being held at Ningbo, Zhejiang between May 22 and 25. The event is expected to be one of the major platforms for CEEC to showcase their products, expand exports to one of the world's largest consumer markets and promote economic and trade cooperation with the East Asian economic powerhouse.

Since 2012, China's trade with the region increased at an annualized growth rate of 8.8 percent while its imports from CEEC have surged at an average growth rate of 7.4 percent, outpacing China's foreign trade expansion for the same period. Two-way trade reached a record high of $142.3 billion in 2024 with Chinese investments in the region topping $24 billion.

China has implemented a trial visa waiver program for ordinary passport holders from 38 countries including CEEC such as Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Estonia and Latvia. These measures ahead of the important exhibition will encourage business activities and further people-to-people exchanges between the two sides.

Leveraging the strengths of its enormous market, Beijing has been determinedly enhancing its capacity for high-level opening-up on a larger scale, in a wider range of sectors and at a deeper level by establishing institutions, focusing key areas like trade, investment, consumption and innovation, promoting domestic reforms and deepening multilateral international cooperation. The exhibition is a visible manifestation of Beijing's commitment between itself and the outside world.

Over the years, the expo has developed into one of the most important podiums to foster China-CEEC pragmatic cooperation and push Beijing's imports from the region. At last year's expo, hundreds of CEEC companies displayed around 5,000 unique products to a large Chinese market and inked orders of roughly $1.5 billion, benefitting from China's high-standard opening-up and extraordinary promptitude of sharing its development opportunities with CEEC.

In a five-day event, some 62 foreign-funded projects were signed with a total investment volume of about $18 billion at a staggering 17.7 percent increase. Among signed deals, almost a quarter involved Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders, covering areas such as high-end equipment manufacturing, biomedicine and the digital economy. Projects such as Hungary's Quantum Cement, Slovenian ski equipment, Romania's eMAG Yangtze River Delta (Ningbo) Operation Center and the European Consumer Goods Exhibition Experience Center were successfully implemented.

As Ningbo hosts the only national-level expo in China that is wholly oriented toward CEEC, countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovenia are seeing it as a means to boost cooperation with China, gain efficient access to China and the wider Asia region, using the common space of the stand for meetings with contractors and marketing cutting-edge technologies to a large Chinese customer base, drawing parallels with China's goals of smart manufacturing, emission reductions and advancing digital technologies to deepen collaboration with the world's second largest economy.

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic's characterization of the moment as "the joint future of our two countries" was mirrored in his recent statement in which he said that Serbian exports to China had leapt 200 times over the last 11 or 12 years. The deepening cooperation in road and railway infrastructure, energy and investment will strengthen the China-Serbia relationship and regional economic and strategic significance.

Hungary is China's key trading and strategic partner in the region. Statistics suggesting that bilateral trade has surpassed 16 billion euros and Chinese electric vehicle giants are investing in the country have positioned Budapest as an important regional economic player and battery manufacturing hub in Europe, enabling it to become a "global leader of a great technological revolution." The U.S. continues to present China as a "strategic challenge" but Budapest has clearly stated that decoupling from Beijing is its "red line.

In addition to Serbia and Hungary, a total of 12 CEEC as well as nine other countries including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are participating in this year's version of the China-CEEC expo. While this underscores the event's outreach to the rest of Europe, it's the attestation of Beijing's efforts to promote multilateral cooperation internationally and advance a new phase of its high-level opening-up.

A dramatic rise in the living standards of the Chinese population and growing demand for quality products in the country is encouraging CEEC to come and take advantage of Beijing's opening-up. Booming trade and investment ties, more than 50 cargo and passenger flights a week, over 2,619 China-Europe freight trains and the expo itself is a reflection of a resilient China-CEEC relationship and Beijing's commitment to openness, broadening horizons for a much-needed multi-level international cooperation to jointly deal with resurgent protectionism.

*My article that first appeared in CGTN:

Multilateralism and global governance reform: Key to shared development in BRICS and beyond

By: Azhar Azam

On the sidelines of BRICS Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, stressed on the importance of forging unity and cooperation and work with international community to improve and reform global governance to address global challenges and historical injustices to the Global South.

Seeking an alliance to safeguard multilateral trading rules, strengthen the international financial system, accelerate green transition and share digital opportunities, he denounced the U.S. for using tariffs as a "bargaining chip to demand exorbitant prices" from other countries, calling on partner states to jointly oppose all forms of protectionism.

As the Western-led governance system experiences an incessant erosion of credibility over its own predatory and protectionist policies, leading to more international turbulence and slower global growth, Wang offered a framework of cooperation to protect interests of the Global South and develop a joint response to the new, cascading challenges, helping contending with America's actions to erect trade barriers and grow at the expense of development in developing nations.

U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed indiscriminate tariffs on almost the entire world, not seen in more than a century. These "fake" taxes reveal that the U.S. can no longer claim to be an anchor of the international economic system or guarantor of free trade and fears competition, which could drive up innovation in the country and have benefited America and Americans for decades.

This "rent-seeking" approach could weigh on the global economy and the U.S. economy. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a burst of tariffs introduced by Trump on April 2 could lower U.S. growth to 1.8 percent in 2025, a 0.9 percent decline from the Fund's January forecast. This could prompt the IMF to call for an urgent trade policy settlement among major players.

At this watershed moment when tariff-induced uncertainty is spiking off the charts, strengthening multilateralism is one of the key means to promote development across regions since it represents a majority of the nations and encourages them to work through joint consultation and shared understanding, raising a collective voice against unlawful tariffs and sanctions.

Due to its core principles, including consensus-based decision-making, fostering development and equality, and modernizing and reforming global multilateral and governance institutions, BRICS has witnessed an exponential expansion over recent years. Several emerging economies, such as Indonesia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran, and potentially Saudi Arabia, are now part of the organization.

BRICS expansion will significantly elevate bloc's influence internationally, bring inclusivity to a fragmented world and contribute to stability and development especially in the Middle East and North Africa, which is grappled with enormous security and economic challenges over Trump's threats of taking over Gaza, military action on Tehran and tariff-driven recession in oil markets.

The organization is accused of seeking to "avowedly" challenge the Western-led economic governance institutions and establish an alternate to the existing international order, but this argument lacks the necessary rigor. BRICS instead envisages amputating systemic bias against the Global South from the current global order and strengthening it by promoting multilateralism, reforming international institutions and stepping up efforts to build a more effective, inclusive and representative multilateral system.

Wang's proposals, as a matter of fact, is consistent with the UN whose Pact of the Future aims at transforming global governance and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at last year BRICS summit emphasized the grouping's role in strengthening multilateralism for global development and security, warned of widening digital divide, admitted lack of Global South's representation in the Bretton Wood institutions and sought the alliance to help craft a more equitable global finance system, boost climate action, improve access to technology and work toward peace.

While the bloc's Contingent Reserve Arrangement contributes to the robustness of the global financial system and complements IMF support mechanisms, its New Development Bank seeks to leverage proven and emerging transformative technologies to deploy clean and renewable energy and build smart transport and logistics projects in partner states that decouple economic growth from environmental degradation and pollution.

BRICS expansion allows countries such as Ethiopia access to technology, bridging the digital gap. The organization advocates resolution of disputes through diplomacy, inclusive dialogues, conflict-prevention efforts, tolerance, and peaceful coexistence through a UN-centered, reinvigorated and reformed multilateral system. The bloc's increased alignment on cultural exchanges and humanitarian projects enhances its profile as a multifaceted organization.

What the world witnesses today is a consequence of the U.S. nationalistic policies, seeking to undermine global peace and upend once-harmonious globalization for self-centric geopolitical and economic gains. This arrogant and protectionist approach and failure of the Western-dominated institutional architecture to address contemporary challenges such as the Ukraine and Middle East crises have triggered disillusionment in the Global South with the so-called liberal order.

In the form of BRICS, the Global South, particularly marginalized countries, has discovered a platform where they are treated with a spirit featuring mutual respect, openness, inclusiveness, and solidarity. It is gaining traction here, where they could collectively raise their voice on global injustices and economic disparities, become part of international policymaking processes, actively participate in shaping a fair and equitable economic order, practice genuine multilateralism, and bring back globalization from the brink.

With BRICS countries representing about half of the world population, 36 percent of territory, 39 percent of world GDP (compared to the G7's 28.4 percent), and 23 percent of international trade, the alliance can leverage its resources and economic and demographic heft to even out global imbalances and an overly West-leaning international order. Increasing trade and deepening economic integration while demonstrating unity, upholding multilateralism, and improving global governance could offset Trump's assault on the monetary sovereignty of the Global South, contribute to peace and stability, and pursue shared development within the member states and across the developing world.

*My article that first appeared in CGTN