**3.1 The changing of the guards**

The ascend of emerging markets and developing countries including China did not occur unexpectedly. It has been predicted by market observers such as O'Neill [42], former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, who published an influential analysis in which he coined a block of selected countries BRICS (referring to the Federative Republic of Brazil, Russian Federation, Republic of India, People's Republic of China (PRC) and Republic of South Africa). These economies have been credited with the prospective capacity to exert far-reaching implications for the international political economy. It has been assumed that their favourable demographics and resources endowments set them up for spectacular economic growth. Further ACRONYMs for high-potential country clusters followed suit, such as MINT (referring to the United Mexican States, Republic of Indonesia, Federal Republic of Nigeria and Republic of Turkey) coined in 2014 by asset management firm Fidelity Investments, and the Next 11 (MINT plus the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Arab Republic of Egypt, Islamic Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Republic of the Philippines, Republic of Korea and Socialist Republic of Vietnam). However, more than two decades have passed and predictions about the BRICS as the most rapidly expanding markets

### *MNC Strategy in Contested Environments: Stay Put or Stay Foot? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112687*

have not quite materialised. While China has been reporting FDI inflows and GDP in unparalleled dimensions, the economies of India, Russia and Brazil have notably disappointed by not diversifying away from commodities towards the private sector. China's GDP (>USD18tr, 2022) has been twice the other BRICS's in aggregate (<USD8tr, 2022). China's economic prowess and leadership within the BRICS illustrates the paramount importance of the country for the success foreign firms in emerging markets [43, 44]. Scholars have pointed out that the rise of China foreshadowed a 'global-Asian era' [45]. However, irrespectively of whether the forecasts have materialised or not, the BRICS movement symbolised a changing of guards in the global economy leaving the developed G7 economies in its wake struggling for relevance.
