There was a time in the 1970s – before the end of the Cold War and the ensuing era of globalisation – when discussing the economic divide between the global “South” and “North” was in vogue. The terms North and South were used in the global context as alternative designations for “developed” nations (defined as Western Europe, the United States, Australia) and “developing” countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa. The poor South was exploited by Europe and its off-shoots in the rich North, it was argued. Hence there needed to be a major transfer of wealth from the industrialised North to the South. Issues of race and culture also entered the discussion, the North being dominated by Western nations while the South was mostly non-white.

Even then that designation didn’t make a lot of sense as the economies in the South – starting with Japan, and later Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan – were being industrialised while oil-producing countries in the Middle East were getting rich. Then globalisation made all the talk about that divide sound anachronistic, as leading nations of the South – including China, India, Argentina and Brazil – have been integrated into the capitalist global economy and on their way to become members of the club of the wealthy nations.

But now against the backdrop of the Ukraine war there seems to be an attempt to revive the old intellectual fashion of the 1980s, the argument being that the old North-South divide explains the differing responses to Russian aggression in Ukraine. From that perspective, that not only China, but also India and the Arab Gulf states, have refused to join the Western economic sanctions against Moscow, reflects rising animosity in a resurgent South against a US-led North.