A New Economic Order?

WASHINGTON POST

BOAO, CHINA — With the United States and Europe still reeling from the 2008 financial crisis, five disparate developing countries led by China — large, populous, with growing economies — are using their combined clout to demand a larger voice and to upend the world’s traditional councils of power.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and newcomer South Africa, collectively known by the acronym BRICS, used their third summit meeting here on this southern Chinese resort island to call for a restructuring of the World War II-era global financial system and an eventual end to the long reign of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

The five run the gamut politically, from vibrant democracies to authoritarian regimes. Economically, they are as much competitors as partners. But what they share is a common sense of exclusion, and the idea that the main institutions of global governance — the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the U.N. Security Council — were formed in a different era when the countries were economically weak and the United States was the world’s dominant superpower.

“They were really the biggest countries kind of left out,” said Amar Bhattacharya, a former World Bank official who now runs the Washington-based Group of 24 forum of developing countries.

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