According to IMF projections, the share of the G7 (United States, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada) in the world economy will drop below 30% this year. If the figure is symbolic, the trend is not new. The relative decline of these great powers began several decades ago and accelerated from the early 2000s due to the rise of emerging countries such as China and India.
This weight loss of the G7 has been less rapid, but has not been interrupted, since the mid-2010s. An evolution largely linked to demography. Indeed, the GDP of a country is the product of its population and the GDP per capita. However, between 2000 and today, the total population of the G7 countries has increased by approximately 50 million people. By comparison, India increased its population over the same period by nearly 400 million. The orders of magnitude reveal two completely different demographic universes, which obviously have impacts in terms of power.
These numbers have implications for the faces of globalization. Still on the basis of IMF data, we note that the exports of the so-called “emerging” countries – this terminology will have to be changed one day – exceeded those of the G7 countries at the start of 2010. The difference is has been digging almost continuously for ten years. This can be seen as the main explanation for the claims of countries like China and India, which consider that the multilateralism built after the Second World War, by the Americans and for the West, has lost its legitimacy. This is difficult for a European or an American to understand, but such is the way of the world and, from this point of view, Chinese diplomacy is not entirely wrong: the West would like to maintain a governance of the international order which no longer corresponds to the economic order.
China should not be viewed as Russia
It should be noted in this context that one country is in economic failure: it is Russia. The weight of this small economy very centered on raw materials and with low added value peaked in 2013 at 3.5% of global GDP. Since then, its relative position, already modest, has continued to erode. It already represents less than 3% of global GDP (19% for China). In fact, European diplomacy must succeed in distinguishing between Russia, a belligerent regime incapable of developing a modern economy and with no other justification than nationalism of the worst kind, from China, a dictatorship whose values we do not share , but which makes claims that are not illogical given the configuration of the global economy.
Does this mean that the economic weight of the West and its allies, such as Japan, is bound to dwindle and, with it, their geopolitical influence? Not necessarily because the data mentioned here do not capture all of what constitutes an economic power. Our economic weight is handicapped by a demography whose major trends will not change. This is why we must, if we still want to have an influence on the way the world works, invest in the other lever of power: innovation. THE wall street journal recently published the ranking of the 25 companies that invest the most in Research and Development. The first five were American (Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Apple and Microsoft). The first Chinese, Huawei, came in 6th place in a ranking still largely dominated by the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, but unfortunately not by France.
The United States, despite a sometimes clumsy diplomacy, has understood this point perfectly, as evidenced by its hyperactive policy in terms of innovation, reindustrialization and decarbonization. We have lost the quantitative dominance of the world, the Americans theorize, but we still have intelligence. Liberal democracies have a magnificent card to play: to become the place to welcome researchers, entrepreneurs, artists who know that only a climate of freedom can allow their talents to flourish. This ethical path of freedom for creativity and innovation is also the best way to stay powerful.