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> It seems like an offensive classification no matter which side you are placed.

If it was so offensive, both India and China would not be at loggerheads trying to posture themselves as a leader of the Global South.

Simple fact of the matter is that progress in modern world requires networked systems. Europeans and Euro-descendants were able to achieve this networking through racial bonhomie and colonialism. Non-western countries do not have that available to them, so they have to invent new narratives to facilitate that networking.

The fact that India may have orbital launch and Australia doesn't is the reason to reject Developing/Developed dichotomy and move to a different one, Global North/South seems to be the one gaining traction.

Getting offended over the existence of the idea of Global South just because it doesn't hew closely to some arbitrary parameter is similar to saying that G7 is natural but BRICS is dangerous. It's just a statement of rote comfort. If Australia is not a northern country by direction, it's not a western country by direction either; I doubt any Australians are in a hurry to classify themselves as an Eastern society and not a Western one.

Fair comment. These blocs seem kind of arbitrary, particularly when a modern, rich and highly developed society such as Singapore is grouped in with struggling war torn nations struggling with basic survival but they likely serve a purpose for someone.

> I doubt any Australians are in a hurry to classify themselves as an Eastern society and not a Western one.

Nearly 20% of the Australian population has origins in Asia so I think at least a fifth would not be too upset. We have a predominantly European descended population and that has a huge influence on our national identity. Even if it makes no geographic sense it is convention to call us a western multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society and I think we would mostly recognize ourselves by that label.

Whatever we are called we are still here a few hundred km to the south of Indonesia. Northern Australians were trading with Sulawesi before Europeans arrived. Te reo Māori is a very distant relative of the languages spoken throughout Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. We aren't moving.

> The thing I resent most is the terms Global North and Global South ... because white people invaded 200 years ago ... It is completely arbitrary, political and divisive.

There is nothing "arbitrary" about the classification, and it was created by aid groups originally based upon socioeconomic factors, later adopted by the UN and others as the term third-world went out of favour after the Cold War ended. It got the North/South bifurcation purely because most of the one set were Northern countries, and most of the other set were Southern countries, and most people don't have a defensiveness about the words North or South and aren't offended by it.

As an aside, acting as if the colonial countries aren't empirically successful because you want to push some umbrage is just super weird. Australia and New Zealand are both highly developed rich countries, regardless of whatever your rural area's infrastructure is like.

Countries in the Global South desperately want to be classified in that grouping because it means development funds and benefits that aren't available to Global North countries. China has rapidly risen over the past couple of decades and it's getting hard to still call it a developing country (and its foreign aid intake has been rapidly tapering off as it industrializes), though to be fair, it still has a GDP per capita 1/4 Australia or New Zealand. Similarly Russia is mighty close to losing Global North standing.

And for that matter South Korea and Japan are a part of the Global North. I guess they didn't get your memo that it's only for the white countries or some such social justice prattle.

And once I get to your final paragraph I'm firmly convinced you were just trolling, or at least I honestly hope you were. Delineating the world by socioeconomic conditions doesn't denote allies or enemies, and this bizarre take is nonsensical and has zero relevance to anything but some contrived taking of offense. The mere notion that it is "arbitrary" is so fantastically ridiculous that you have to be having a laugh.

Can anyone explain to me convincingly why Singapore is in the Global South on development and economic grounds?

I suspect the Global South at least as far as Asia is concerned is almost entirely about global political alignment.

Countries in the US alliance appear to be labelled North. Singapore is highly developed and like the rest of ASEAN is non-aligned. China is a global superpower and people align to them. SK, Japan, Aus and NZ are strongly US aligned for better or worse.

Because it fit when the classification originated and has never asked to be reclassified. South Korea was also considered a developing country and was cast as the global South back in the early days, but diplomatically and through its membership in the OECD became a developed/Global North country. If Singapore is offended it can ask UNCTAD and get reassigned.

Ultimately it largely doesn't even matter. It's a casual shorthand that in the overwhelming majority of cases is an accurate split between developed and developing/poorer countries. Some tiny city-state counterpoint isn't really convincing. Orgs like UNCTAD use it to high-level report on progress in lifting up developing nations.

As to alliances, ignoring that you're completely backtracking on your original post regarding that (you know the one where Australia is actual pals with all its neighbours and the N/S thing is a big lie), for obvious reasons the world's most prosperous countries tend to have common interests. Not to mention that a number of countries with a shared history (e.g. the commonwealth and the colonies) ended up being some of the richest countries.

I mean it's basically just a drop in replacement for "first world" and "third world" to get away from the cold war history and because the ordinals have a clear, intentional value judgement attached to them. It's not a good nomenclature I don't really intend to defend it here, I also don't like it at all.

But it's not worse than what we were using before, and it's not completely arbitrary either. It's frequently useful to group countries in this way, people seem to really want to do it regardless, there's going to be names for this idea.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt the same. There are so many edge cases to the incredibly broad and outdated classification of the world in terms of “north” (rich) and “south” (poor), the terms have lost all meaning. They don’t account for the fact that countries rise and fall. It speaks to the human penchant for short term black and white thinking.

How about East - West?

https://m.xkcd.com/503/

Strangely, most people "Orient" a map with the east on the right hand side and the Occident on the left hand side.

That is just equivalent to North pointing up. Many commenters have explained why that is the most prevalent.

I mean, except that you could of course have the subterranean view of the World, with North point up, East to the left, and West to the right, if you so like... Confusion guaranteed!

Funny. I come from Poland and for us the East/West dichotomy always made sense: the West = Western Europe and US (think richer, more organized, pleasant to visit) vs the East = remains of USSR (poorer, corrupted, wild), the "proper Asian East" behind it and the most exotic "Far East" at the very end. Not very politically correct, but this was a cognitive construct most of us here had in their minds, at least until this decade.