Acronym alert : SEA BRICs? SEA CRIBs?
THERE has been a lot of talk of late about the possibility of a new international grouping known informally as the BRICs-plus, with Indonesia often being mentioned as a member. Such talk got me thinking about the undervalued position of Southeast Asia more generally in the thinking of many when pondering the world’s economic future. My ruminations recently intensified when I read a piece by Financial Times columnist Janan Ganesh making the case (obvious to me) that Southeast Asia going forward was the place a young person staking out a career would want to be. Hear, hear. If I were young, I’d be on a plane over right now.
Not that Southeast Asia has been totally disregarded in the era of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China), an acronym that originated with financial analyst Jim O’Neill, then at Goldman Sachs, in 2001. For example, over a decade ago, as a result of both Russia’s frequent economic troubles and Indonesia’s economic promise, some writers, putting an Italian-sounding twist on things, began speaking of BICI (Brazil, India, China, and Indonesia). A bit later, O’Neill, beavering away, began touting MIST (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, and Turkey), and speaking and writing about what he called the “next 11” (N11), a broad grouping of large emerging economies with great promise that included three countries in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam) as well as nearby Bangladesh.
O’Neill, as usual, was on to something, as a quick and simple comparison will demonstrate. According to estimates in the CIA World Fact Book (2022), India, an original member of the BRIC group—at times the acronym has been rendered as BRICS to include South Africa as well -- currently has a population of about 1.39 billion. Today the population of the 11 nation-states in Southeast Asia (the Asean nations plus Timor-Leste) is a little over 689 million, or just under half that of India. However, according to data for 2021 from the World Bank, the combined GDP of the Southeast Asian nation-states, US$3.345 trillion, rendered in nominal US dollars, is larger than that of India by about 5 per cent. Indeed, if Southeast Asia was considered a single entity, its GDP in 2021 would rank as the fifth largest in the world.
Moreover, at a time when economic globalisation is being challenged, if not under siege, Southeast Asia is the most global place on Earth in economic terms. World Bank data from 2021 (2020 in the case of Vietnam) reveal that trade-to-GDP ratios in 7 of the 11 nation-states in the region were over 100, with Singapore’s an astounding 338. To be sure, some of the nation-states in Southeast Asia are small, with limited domestic markets, but large countries in the region also had high trade-to-GDP rations: Vietnam (208), Malaysia (131), and Thailand (117), most notably. In contrast, the ratios for the BRICs in 2021 were as follows: Brazil (39), China (37), India (44), and Russia (54).
Southeast Asia has other advantages as well. Interstate relations are generally stable and have been for some time. The region -- a large market open to trade, as we have just seen— consists of a diverse portfolio of nation-states offering resources and skill sets for economic activities of all kinds, from low-paying, low-value-added activities to those at the top end. Think about it. The region is home to four extremely poor countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Timor-Leste), three middle-income countries, the ones in O’Neill’s N11 grouping (Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam); two upper-middle-income countries (Malaysia and Thailand), and two very high-income countries (Singapore and Brunei). The region’s diversity extends further still. Some of the countries (Laos and Cambodia) are still very rural, while one is entirely urban, with the others falling somewhere in between. The population in most of the nation-states in Southeast Asia is young, and educational levels are rising in the region. Indeed, the region’s educational leader, Singapore, ranks at or near the top of global league tables relating to all levels of education, and is home to some of the finest universities (and research facilities) in the world.
When one factors in the region’s economically strategic location and its increasingly impressive port and air facilities, there’s a lot to like about the region’s prospects going forward, enough in my view to add the region, rather than Indonesia alone, to the BRIC quartet (or quintet). For the sake of clarity, let me add that in making the case for inclusion of Southeast Asia, I’m thinking of the BRICs constellation à la O’Neill to denote areas of great economic promise rather than as a discrete political grouping.
If Southeast Asia (SEA) is added, we will need a new acronym, however. Maybe SEA BRICs, or, mixing things up, SEA CRIBs, but I’m certainly open to other possibilities as well.
Peter A Coclanis is Albert R Newsome Distinguished Professor of History and director of the Global Research Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US). He has lived and worked in Singapore, and in fall 2005 was Raffles Professor of History at the National University of Singapore.
