International | On the rise

Who’s the big boss of the global south?

In a dog-eat-dog world, competition is fierce

An illustration of a foam hand with a pointing index finger coloured red with yellow stars like the Chinese flag.
Illustration: Ricardo Tomás
|CAPE TOWN

SNIFFY TYPES disdain the notion of “the global south”, which has become something of a meme in recent years. Its inadequacies are obvious: three words could never capture the complexities of a group of more than 100 countries spread from Morocco to Malaysia and beyond. But the phrase has been adopted by Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping.

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This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Who’s the big boss of the global south?”

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