BRIC: BRAZIL (B), RUSSIA (R), INDIA (I) - CHINA (C)

The post-World War-II global economic-political hegemony of the Non-communist world, led by the United States of America, experienced an epochal change in the 1970s.   The ad hoc economic compacts have been quite familiar since the 1980s. My piece on the G-20 in this BLOG presents the story of the G-5, G-8, now the G-20 since the 1980s. The four economies in three continents - Brazil in the American Hemisphere, Russia, spanning over the two continents - Europe and Asia, India and China both on the map of Asia have become a compact.

The BRIC four cover a huge geographic area. Russia with its Area of 17098.000 sq. km is the largest country in the world. China with its share of 9597.000 sq. km comes second. Brazil's share of 8515.000 sq.km. ranks third while India with its share 0f 3287.000 of sq.km comes fourth or last in the group.    In land area, Canada, USA, and Australia are competitively large. China and Brazil come next to Canada and USA while Australia closely follows the two. India with a population base of 1.19 billion ranks first insofar as population density is concerned; China with her population of 1.34 billion comes next.  Brazil with its population of 203.4 billion has a comparative advantage, while Russia with its 138.7 billion people is the least populous in the BRIC group of four. In terms of per capita income in US dollar Russia with a per capita income of US$ 10,900 is the leader while Brazil with US$ 10,900 comes second. China with US$7,400 and India with US$3,400 follow, in that order. The BRIC-4 remains far behind USA and Australia at US$ 47,400 and US$ 41,300, respectively. On this score, the BRIC-4 will also be out competed by the EU-27.

The BRIC-4 substantively differs from the EU-27, the family of Europe, continental economic integration with one geography and one economy, progressively with monetary and political integration. The BRIC four, as noted before, belong to three continents, and fail to present the sense of belonging to one common geographic family. The failure of the pan-Pacific economic cooperation, the ASIA-PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION (APEC) to deliver what it promised to peoples of the Pacific countries on the Asian and the American shores, is on the record. The success of the European Union in the post-WWII decades offers a paradigm of new economics. Per capita income of each of the EU-27 member economy has been a record for much attention. Indeed, the EU paradigm has become a learning model for other continents - Africa, Asia, the American Hemisphere. During visits to Brazil and Argentine in 2010, President Barak Obama has spoken of the concept of the American family where each member country is equal. Jean Monnett argued for the European family and each member state of the EU must approve of any substantive decision made by the EU.

The BRIC four has a different database for population. China and India are the two most populous countries, each with billion-plus peoples. Both Brazil and Russia are far out distanced. The land-man ratio places India in the crisis zone.