Is China winning the Global South?

China is "forging ties in the Global South," said The Washington Post, making inroads with countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America whose leaders increasingly seek an "alternative to Western hegemony" led by America and Europe. Beijing has increased its joint military drills with countries like Tanzania and Mozambique, and has sought to expand the U.N. Security Council to include the developing world. It's all part of China's attempt to achieve "greater legitimacy on the global stage."

Those efforts are boosting China's standing. "In a lot of the capitals around the world," Stanford University's Oriana Skylar Mastro told the Post, "they're now thinking first of Beijing, and then of Washington." 

"This isn't about authoritarianism versus democracy," David P. Goldman said at The Asia Times. It's about commerce and influence. Beijing has "doubled exports to the Global South" since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, and those exports are going to democracies like India. The goal? "To make the world dependent on Chinese technology and supply chains."

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What did the commentators say?

Chinese firms are expanding to the Global South "with startling speed," said The Economist. Those businesses are "building factories in countries from Malaysia to Morocco," and they're also pursuing the "5 billion consumers who live in the rest of the developing world." That growth offers "uncomfortable lessons" for the West, which has increasingly raised trade barriers to Chinese goods. China is now "reaping the rewards" of sticking with globalization. "As the West has turned inward, China and the rest of the emerging world have drawn closer."

"The Chinese charm offensive is working," Gabriele Manca said at The Diplomat, helped along by a combination of "economic influence, soft power, political pressure, and diplomatic initiatives." That work is also forward-thinking: By 2100, "eight out of 10 people will live in Asia or Africa." That shift in population will inevitably "reshape the global economic and political order." New York is the "quintessential city of the current era of globalization" that has been shaped by Western countries. Now China is offering a way forward to those "left out of today's globalization benefits." 

What next?

There is a class element to all of this. A survey of 35 countries found that most residents of "middle-income countries" — like those found in the Global South — see China favorably, said Pew Research Center. (The favorable views were highest in Thailand, Kenya and Bangladesh.) In high-income countries, however, the vast majority of respondents see China unfavorably. Those views are more divided, though, in the Asia-Pacific where China has simmering territorial disputes with its neighbors. 

American leaders acknowledge that China has "outpaced" the U.S. in the Global South, said The Washington Post. "We need to do more," Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The goal for U.S. officials is to make sure the planetary playing field doesn't go uncontested. "We want to help ensure that [countries in the Global South] have a choice," another State Department official said to The Atlantic Council in February, "and that they can make their decisions free from coercion."