AHC/WI: (Make) BRICS First World Countries to Compete with the G7

The reason I'm posting this here is since I figure it might need a POD in the 19th century (or earlier) to get this ball rolling. But if it must be moved, I trust the admin will do so.

Now that we've got that out of the way:

The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) are the leading emerging economies of the world as of 2016. The G7 are the first world countries - America, Canada, UK, Germany, Italy, France and Japan (Russia was part of it until being suspended in 2014). How can we make it that BRICS are by alt-2016, no longer emerging but first world economies/countries rivalling the G7? And how might this affect the world as we know it?
 
Out of curiosity, could Russia, Brazil and China being three of the largest countries in the world, and China and India having the world's largest populations, plus South Africa's gold and diamond resources help/hinder this from happening?
 
South Africa on its own is at least theoretically a few simple differences in the late 19th century resulting in a state that isn't an apartheid regime. South Africa being where it is today despite its past and relative isolation from most of the global economy is somewhat impressive; I imagine that a more economically integrated South Africa would be at the very least hitting at South Korea's GDP per capita by today.
 
Just let China become stable under a strong dynasty/Republic and India get freedom early on, then allow the two to have actually competent statesmen, and not warlords/illerate peasants as their leaders.
 
Avoid Alexander III and Nicholas II's reactonary reigns, have the Tsarist system get reformed (it can be overthrow later though), avoid the World Wars and the Soviet Union I can see a modernized Russian with around ~350-400 million people being a fair opponent to the United States.

For China, have the Qing reforms itself (hard and requires enormous amounts of luck) or a new dynasty rises (great risk of a earlier, and probably longer, Warlord Era), for a post-1900 PoD have the KMT with a competent leadership defeat the Communists and introduce liberal reforms earlier (in the 1950s or 60s).

For India, stay united and get independence asap, limited knowledge on this one.

For Brazil... I'm VERY pessimistic about my fatherland, it probably requires even more luck than the Qing, but here we go: avoid the fall of the Empire in 1889, if you want the Republic so much after it happen later and preferably without the mess that was the fall of the monarchy, AND have industrialists like Mauá under the state's patronage (rather than OTL).

No idea for South Africa, sorry.

So it is stability+competence, but for the BRICS (expect maybe India) those aren't really trivial goals.
 
Russia, India and China only have to do one thing, no matter the ruler(s): Reform, reform, reform and guess what? More reform.
 
China and Russia could both get there in the 20th century. With Russia, a Democratic and Capitalist system emerges following a civil war post WWI. I dont know enough about Kerensky and the Whites to know if they fit the bill. But a revolutionary regime that wipes out the Tsar's order and leads to democratic capitalism could work.

With China, Japan and Korea both offer templates to get to this status fairly quickly post WWII. Heck, its post 1978 reforms do much of the work by itself.

India and South Africa both face challenges in being geographically disadvantaged relative to Europe or North America. So the Asian export model doesnt work for either of them.

Out of curiosity, could Russia, Brazil and China being three of the largest countries in the world, and China and India having the world's largest populations, plus South Africa's gold and diamond resources help/hinder this from happening?

The Resource Curse/Dutch Disease is real and hurts Russia/USSR post late 60s and is probably a liability for Brazil and South Africa. Russia has to achieve a developed economy before finding the cheap oil in Western Siberia otherwise they almost certainly succumb to OTL regardless of the political/economic system.
 
As far as resource curse is concerned, it's something I've been wondering: Italy and Japan are both examples of countries that aren't exactly resource rich, yet they still managed to claw their way into the G7/8. Was this courtesy of a specific set of circumstances?

Can Russia and China's economies develop better under the Communist regimes? And when South Africa was under sanctions during the apartheid years, maybe start trading with the Commies if the "free" world won't trade with them?
 
As far as resource curse is concerned, it's something I've been wondering: Italy and Japan are both examples of countries that aren't exactly resource rich, yet they still managed to claw their way into the G7/8. Was this courtesy of a specific set of circumstances?

Meiji Japan inherited a stable, efficient and prosperous state that was during the Edo period, which allowed a most peaceful (save conflicts like Satsuma) transition into modernity, I don't know in-depth details about the process, but the Japanese economy was already in a good state to transcend into the industrial age, but mind you that the Japanese economy wasn't exactly great, Japan was nearly bankrupt in 1905.

Italy did get a lot of advantages over let's say Brazil, India and South Africa, unlike India it don't have much sectarian conflict (ethnic or religious), unlike Brazil it don't suffer from colonial institutions plaguing any attempt to the country's progress* and unlike South Africa it isn't plagued by a fucked up system and condemns most of its people to poverty; that said Italy was to a certain point even worse than Japan, back in the 1890s Italy was still mostly agrarian and poor and despite the government's spending on the military, its performances in both World Wars were pathetic. The countries' current position is more a consequence of their post-war progress rather something based on their foundations, that said Italy was in a way better position than the BRICS (as I already said).

*Yeah, I know Italy had (and IIRC still has) problems with big quasi-feudal landowners plaguing the country, but it didn't the slave-run pseudo fiefdoms around there with a still tragic and poor legacy like Brazil. Also if any Italian wants to correct me, I would love it!

Can Russia and China's economies develop better under the Communist regimes? And when South Africa was under sanctions during the apartheid years, maybe start trading with the Commies if the "free" world won't trade with them?

Soviet Russia... maybe? For all his brutality Stalin did a great job in industrializing an agrarian country that just came from a Great War+Civil War combo, maybe it was possible to do the same without millions starved if not outright murdered? I don't know. For China, get rid of Mao (he dies in the late 1940s) and have someone remotely competent in his place and you get a better China. That said, I still believe a capitalistic Russia or China would develop their economies in much better pace than the commies (mostly Russia).

Would the commies want to trade with Apartheid-South Africa?

btw, I'm not an economist (FAR from it), so take my claims as a grain of salt.
 
You can get some parts of India to kinda sorta meet up with the first world by avoiding colonialism. Avoiding the disintegration of Mughal power may be sufficient for that, by avoiding Aurangzeb, or if you wanna go a bit later, keep Nader Shah from devastating the Mughal Empire.
 
Meiji Japan inherited a stable, efficient and prosperous state that was during the Edo period, which allowed a most peaceful (save conflicts like Satsuma) transition into modernity, I don't know in-depth details about the process, but the Japanese economy was already in a good state to transcend into the industrial age, but mind you that the Japanese economy wasn't exactly great, Japan was nearly bankrupt in 1905.

Italy did get a lot of advantages over let's say Brazil, India and South Africa, unlike India it don't have much sectarian conflict (ethnic or religious), unlike Brazil it don't suffer from colonial institutions plaguing any attempt to the country's progress* and unlike South Africa it isn't plagued by a fucked up system and condemns most of its people to poverty; that said Italy was to a certain point even worse than Japan, back in the 1890s Italy was still mostly agrarian and poor and despite the government's spending on the military, its performances in both World Wars were pathetic. The countries' current position is more a consequence of their post-war progress rather something based on their foundations, that said Italy was in a way better position than the BRICS (as I already said).

*Yeah, I know Italy had (and IIRC still has) problems with big quasi-feudal landowners plaguing the country, but it didn't the slave-run pseudo fiefdoms around there with a still tragic and poor legacy like Brazil. Also if any Italian wants to correct me, I would love it!

Soviet Russia... maybe? For all his brutality Stalin did a great job in industrializing an agrarian country that just came from a Great War+Civil War combo, maybe it was possible to do the same without millions starved if not outright murdered? I don't know. For China, get rid of Mao (he dies in the late 1940s) and have someone remotely competent in his place and you get a better China. That said, I still believe a capitalistic Russia or China would develop their economies in much better pace than the commies (mostly Russia).

Would the commies want to trade with Apartheid-South Africa?

btw, I'm not an economist (FAR from it), so take my claims as a grain of salt.

IDK if the Commies would want to trade with South Africa, I'm just suggesting it as an option. The economic sanctions of OTL sort of fell through since South Africa was sitting on some nice gold-diamond reserves that the rest of the world still wanted to get their hands on. Mainly the reason I'm asking about the commies/dictatorships is due to the Nandos' advert with Robert Mugabe, Botha,etc having a grand old time together.

So what if Stalin gets the industrial revolution in Russia kickstarted, but he gets assassinated by a Russian (for being a non-Russian) shortly before/after he starts starving/murdering the millions.
 
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