The west has labelled China’s Belt and Road Initiative as a cohesive programme, and the participating countries like Sri Lanka are looked upon with suspicion, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Thursday (28) at the Berlin Global Conference.

“This will further hurt economic prospects in the global South, and the polarisation will become more evident,” he said.

Great power rivalries and geopolitics have been an emerging threat to open access to trade, investment, capital, and technology that are vital for the economic recovery of the developing world, President Wickremesinghe said.

The President also mentioned that recently US national security advisor Jake Sullivan had rejected the Washington Consensus at an address at the Brookings Institute.

“With the new concept of de-risking and decoupling, the developing South, which was compelled to follow the Washington Consensus, is now asked to do a 180 degree turn even without consultation with us. With decoupling, whatever it is, we have been asked to change the system. We were compelled to get into it. Now, we are told it is no longer relevant.”

Wickremesinghe went on to say the global south is now looking for alternative leadership, given the expansion of the BRICS and the downgrading of G20. In 2024, the US leadership might change and that people are wondering what policy changes would ensue.

“We know in 2024, the US leadership may not be there. Then who is going to act? So I think it’s a chance for the EU to come up and work with the other countries. There’s no one else. So I am suggesting that the EU, together with G20 BRICS, certainly the USA, and some selected other Asian and African nations, the IMF and the NDBs, and you can bring in the big financial institutions, private ones, sit down and find urgent solutions.”

The world requires a constructive dialogue between the West and China, said the President.

“We need a constructive dialogue between the US and China. We need a constructive dialogue between the EU and China. Otherwise we will not move forward. So this is the stark reality. It’s a question of how we get together and how we work, and who’s going to take the lead in 2024.”

The following are excerpts of the speech: “I don’t think in any other period of modern history have we gone through this type of a crisis. And in all these instances, it’s the developing economies and the global south that has suffered extremely. We are now faced with stubbornly high inflation in advanced economies, oil prices edging towards US $100 a barrel, and monetary tightening by the global central banks.

“One example is that Sri Lanka’s export to Europe has not increased at all this year … so far this year. That’s an indication of how we are being affected as we try to recover from the crisis we face. The confluences of factors face serious risk for many developing countries. In the global south, we are facing rising import costs, food, energy, insecurity, and the problems of our exports. The resulting balance of payment stress translates into a weaker economy for all of us. The difference between the advanced economies and the developing nations is that you all have all the buffers and reserves to deal with these shocks. We haven’t. And it’s from here that the sovereign debt crisis started.

“In this context, I think the world may be in another crisis if corrective measures are not taken immediately. Many developing countries find themselves with large debt burdens. For example, the IMF has no mechanism to face this new situation. When Sri Lanka declared bankruptcy, all foreign funding ceased and that started the political crisis. If not for the help given by the World Bank in regraduating Sri Lanka, and the help given by my old friend Samantha Power in funding us with fertilisers, the chances were I would not be able to come here today. I would not have been in the position.

“The funding on the table is woefully inadequate to address the vast challenges at hand. So we haven’t got any money. But we do have 100 billion with the IMF. Let’s start with that money. 100 billion is better than nothing. Then let’s see how we can raise the rest of it. Because though I talk of Sri Lanka, I must say Africa’s needs, especially of the low-income countries, are far greater than ours. And the problems Africa faces need not be described by me because I think there are enough representatives here. The developing countries require financing up to US 5.9 trillion to fulfil their nationally determined contributions. Then further US 4 trillion, for clean energy technology to achieve net zero emissions, look at Sri Lanka’s financing needs for our climate prosperity plan to succeed. We need 26 five billion US dollars by 2030.

“These is a country that’s bankrupt. And with the IMF states, we’ll have for the next few years a growth rate of 3.5% if you are lucky. Here again, global coordination and leadership to resolve these challenges have simply not been sufficient to address the magnitude of the urgency of the problem. So what we need here is a new architecture.

Now we’ve been talking of the many crises and shocks we have discussed today. And we’ve been talking about what we have to do. First, we’ve all agreed that the core of the international financial architecture today was designed almost 80 years ago. The world has seen dramatic changes since then with many emerging economies in Asia, Middle East, South America, and Africa becoming global economic powerhouses.”