East-West-South Patterns of Trade

Although there were occasional references to the rich North and the poor South of the world in earlier years, it was only during the Paris CIEC talks in 1977–78 that ‘North-South’ became a concept. The Paris talks were a political exercise from which the Soviet Union and her allies had been excluded. It is ironic to recall that only slightly earlier an attempt had been made to bury the notion that international politics must be seen in terms of an East-West conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. Attention was then drawn to the multipolar nature of the situation and the new power of Europe, Japan, and China.