Ray Dalio’s The Changing World Order focuses on the central idea that the world moves through repeating cycles of debt, power and renewal. For me, it was not in the halls of empire that I was exposed to these serial cycles, but in the messy, exhilarating world of global emerging markets. What I experienced as an emerging markets investor was not peripheral to the global markets story, it was a preview. The turbulence that once defined the developing world has now spread to the developed one. The world Dalio described was already forming on the horizon; as emerging markets investors, we were just standing closer to its front line.
A threat to the global order
Between 2011 and 2018, we moved through cities that were rewriting their own futures. From the traffic-choked ambition of Mumbai, the industrial pulse of Shenzhen, the political theatre of Brasília, right through to the vibrant optimism of Johannesburg. Every city was its own experiment in progress, rising, stumbling, reforming and reinventing.
In these emerging markets, confidence could swiftly turn to panic, capital could flee at the first hint of political turmoil, and extraordinary companies emerged strongest from chaos. The same forces Ray Dalio wrote about – debt, inequality, conflict, and the erosion of trust – were already visible, not in textbooks, but on the ticker tape and trading screens.
During this period, the West set the tempo. Emerging markets were seen as the outer orbit. But since then, the roles have reversed. The frontier has become the centre, and Trump’s targeted attacks on BRICS+ indicate the threat they have become to the global order.
Following the rise of political risk in 2016 with Brexit, Trump and populism in Europe, the assumption that advanced economies were stable began to crumble. Developed markets started behaving like emerging ones, while many emerging markets were maturing, reforming and stabilising. The distinction lies not in geography but behaviour.
The end of the easy money and the peace dividend
With the US having hit its highest debt level in history, currently sitting at over $36 trillion, debt has become the defining feature of the Western model.
For four decades, investors rode a tailwind of globalisation and leverage; those tailwinds are now headwinds. Capital is more expensive, geopolitics matters again, and the assets once considered safe no longer offer the same protection. The US Federal Reserve, which once absorbed shocks, is now a source of volatility.
Meanwhile, China has asserted itself as both an economic and military power. Its Belt and Road Initiative, technological leadership, and growing influence in BRICS+ signal a deliberate reshaping of the world order. Trade wars, sanctions and tariffs, including those proposed again by Donald Trump, are not just political theatre; they are instruments of competition.
The rise of the East
In Beijing in 2017, what struck me was what was missing. No Google, Facebook, Amazon – only Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. China had built a parallel digital universe. In addition, the world’s most valuable tech companies may still be US-listed, but the foundations of their dominance – semiconductors powering AI – are manufactured largely in Taiwan, by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
Today, the East writes much of the global script. India has become the world’s most populous nation and one of its most dynamic economies. China remains a manufacturing and financial powerhouse. Gulf states are deploying capital across Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the West shows signs of fatigue: high debt, political polarisation and social division.
In gold we trust
The rise in gold prices is not about jewellery demand. It is about trust or the erosion of it. Central banks in China, India and Turkey are buying record amounts of gold as they diversify away from the dollar and question the sustainability of Western fiscal policies. We are moving from an age of financial wealth to an age of tangible wealth.
South Africa stands at the crossroads of this global realignment. As a resource-rich member of BRICS+, it benefits from the East’s appetite for metals, minerals and food security, but its financial markets remain deeply connected to Western capital. That duality can present both strength and vulnerability.
The world may reward producers of real assets, but only those who deliver them with consistency. South Africa’s role in the energy transition through platinum group metals, copper and manganese positions it well, provided we maintain policy stability and institutional strength.
Gold’s resurgence captures the mood of the current moment. Its rise is not merely an inflation hedge or a safe-haven trade, it is a reflection of the world’s unease with the dollar-centric financial order.
From reliance to resilience
It is often said that little happens in a year, but a decade can change everything. We invest for the long term, which is another way of saying we invest in time itself. The task of investors is to look beyond what moves today and see what is becoming inevitable to sense the next tide before it crests. Perhaps ten years from now, we will look back on this very moment and realise that the next great shift had already begun, quietly, invisibly, yet in plain sight.
