The non-BRIC emergent economies are becoming, with remarkable speed, a whole new motor for the global economy. The 10 biggest of these, (Mexico, South Korea, Turkey, Poland, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Iran, Argentina and Thailand) had a collective nominal GDP in 2008 of $5.6 trillion, according to the IMF, larger than the GDP of Japan or China.

In purchasing power parity, their collective GDP was $8.8 trillion, larger than the economies of Japan and Germany combined. Indeed, these 10 non-BRIC countries constitute the world's third-largest economic group, after the European Union and the United States.

Considered in this light, the global economy takes on an interesting new shape with five dominant components:

'08 GDP nominal '09 estimate GDP by PPP

(all sums in $ trillion)

EU 18.4 17.8 15.2 U.S. 14.4 14.0 14.3 China 4.4 4.7 7.9

BRI 4.5 4.7 7.5 The Ten 5.6 5.9 8.8

(Under either measurement of GDP, these five groups between them account for 78 percent of global GDP.)

The Ten GDP (nominal) GDP (PPP) GDP per capita

Mexico* 1.1 1.6 $14,500

South Korea* 0.93 1.4 $27,600

Turkey* 0.73 0.9 $13,100

Poland 0.53 0.7 $17,500

Indonesia* 0.51 0.9 $4,000

Saudi Arabia* 0.47 0.6 $23,800

Taiwan 0.4 0.7 $30,900

Iran 0.34 0.8 $11,000

Argentina* 0.33 0.6 $14,400

Thailand 0.27 0.6 $8,200

____ ___ Totals 5.6 8.8

(* signifies member of G20)

These are themselves highly dynamic countries, whose growth prospects are contingent on different variables. The oil price will be critical for Mexico, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran faces the prospect of internal upheaval plus international sanctions. Mexico will depend heavily on the pace of U.S. recovery, and Turkey and Poland on the recovery of the European economies more generally. The fortunes of South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand are strongly linked to China and each of The Ten (with the possible exception of Poland) is prone to suffer from domestic or regional instability. And yet these countries have grown in recent years, including during the recession, despite these vulnerabilities.

The launch on Jan. 1 of the China-ASEAN free-trade agreement will help boost this emergent market effect. In 2009, while the United States accounted for 13.6 percent of China's total trade, Africa and the 10 ASEAN nations together accounted for almost as much -- 13.5 percent. (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations includes Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.)

Trade between emergent nations, sometimes called South-South trade, is now the most dynamic component of the global economy. This is NOT simply a factor of the BRIC countries; Brazil, India and Russia accounted for just 5.8 percent of China's trade. It is China's impact on the other emergent markets that is the striking new development. Indeed, the other emergent markets helped to rescue the Chinese economy from its 2008 nosedive. Taking the year-on-year export figures for November 2009, while Chinese exports to the EU fell by 8 percent and to the United States by 1.7 percent, China's exports to the ASEAN nations rose by a dramatic 20.8 percent, and China's imports from them rose 45 percent.

Within this decade, current trading trends suggest that South-South trade could overtake trade among the G7 nations and should also exceed North-South trade. Fueled by rising populations and increased amounts of Foreign Direct Investment, the non-G7 economies are likely to produce more than half of the world's GDP. (Currently, the G7 economies account for 57 percent of nominal global GDP.)

Of course, the G7 nations will remain far richer, both as countries and individually, and are likely to enjoy far into the future the fruits of their traditional dominance of higher education, technological innovation and so on. But the important advantage the G7 nations long enjoyed, of comprising the world's biggest and richest and most attractive consumer market, is being eroded with remarkable and unexpected speed. That means that their consumer tastes and habits will no longer be the global norm. New products are less likely to be developed and launched with Western consumers in mind. Research funds and projects are less likely to be predicated on a Western consumer base. The long tradition of Western cultural dominance -- and the political influence and soft power that it generated -- is likely to face increasing challenge.

The significance of the growth of The Ten as a new locomotive force for the global economy is that there will be no single rival to Western culture, but a host of competitors. Brazilian music, Mexican singers, Turkish literature, Argentine dance, Thai sports, Polish architecture, Saudi calligraphy and Indonesian design will all jostle together in the vast new marketplace, alongside Bollywood movies, Russian weapons and Chinese manufactures. The new world order in the wake of the recession is going to be much less predictable, much more culturally eclectic and even chaotic. Some will find it an uncomfortable Babel; others will thrill to the rich excitements of choice and diversity.

Most should be relieved that some gloomy recent suggestions of an inevitable clash of civilizations between China and the West are likely to give way to something more confused. The really good news is that when China's growth rate slows, as it is likely to do this decade as the labor force peaks and the number of retirees soars, there are now new candidates for future growth ready to take China's place and maintain global demand.

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