The end of a trend? The Global South and the Japanese media

by Virgil Hawkins | 9 July 2026 | Journalism/speech, News View, Politics, World

In 2023, GNV identified the sudden appearance of the term “Global South” in the Japanese media. It was the result of the Japanese government attempting to promote the concept in the lead up to the G7 Hiroshima Summit. It appeared to be part of an effort to bring together the countries comprising this grouping to help them confront Russia over their invasion of Ukraine. The Japanese media followed the lead of their government and introduced the term to their coverage of the world.

The Global South is a label generally used to refer to low- and middle-income countries. The “South” part comes from the fact that a large proportion of such countries are located south of most of the world’s high-income countries. But the concept is more than a matter of geography or even income. There is a sense of solidarity among many of these countries based on a history of being colonized by the countries of the Global North. There is also an understanding that exploitation by the countries and companies of the Global North continues today. And forums like the G7 help exclude the countries of the Global South from adequately participating decision-making regarding the direction the world takes.

Although just three years have passed since this label was introduced to mainstream media coverage in Japan, its use of the label may already be dying out.

BRICS summit, 2025 (Photo: GovernmentZA / Flickr [CC BY-ND 4.0])

Falling out of fashion?

After the initial examination of the rise of the term in 2023, GNV revisited the coverage of the Global South by major Japanese newspapers the following year. It found that while the term had been the object of large quantities of coverage in early 2023, by 2024 coverage levels had decreased markedly. The use of the phrase did not appear to be taking root.

It also found that coverage that there was, was focused not primarily on the Global South itself or the majority of the world’s countries that comprise it, but instead on the position of this grouping within a broader struggle for influence by China, the US, Europe, and Japan. The Global South term was referenced, but there was little context or nuance about the grouping itself. Conversely, coverage of the ten countries with the largest population in the global south appeared to be on the decline.

Two years on from this analysis, has the coverage shifted? I repeated the count of articles containing the phrase “Global South” in the Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, and Yomiuri Shimbun for the two-year period between July 2024 and June 2026.

The results show a further decline in the use of the term over the last two years. The number of articles mentioning “Global South” in these three newspapers in the first half of 2026 averaged just six articles per month in each of the newspapers. This is roughly one quarter of what it was in the first half of 2023, when the usage peaked, and half of what it was in the first half of 2024.

Furthermore, the vast majority of the articles using the term did not contain substantive coverage of the concept or the group. As was found in GNV’s analysis of earlier time periods, most articles contained only a brief mention of the group. In the two-year period examined, the “Global South” appeared in the headline of just 7 articles in the Asahi Shimbun, 3 in the Mainichi Shimbun, and 4 in the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Coverage content

While it is true that many references to the Global South in these newspaper articles were one-off mentions in a single paragraph of an article, it is worth looking at the context in which the label was used.

Let’s use one of the newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun, as an example. The Asahi Shimbun used the term Global South in 196 articles between July 2024 and June 2026. The following graph serves as an overview of the context of the sentence or paragraph in the article in which the term was used. There was a degree of overlap in some of the references. As such, the selection of categories was based on the primary topic of discussion surrounding the reference.

When Japanese newspapers began using the term Global South in 2023, they were responding to Japanese government efforts to spread the narrative that in its shared G7 aim to counter Russia, Japan and its allies must gain the cooperation and participation of the countries making up the Global South. The Japanese media accepted this narrative with almost no doubt or question.

To some degree, this has continued in recent years. Editorials in the Asahi Shimbun still call for Japan to enhance its relations with the countries of the Global South, or aspirationally suggest that Japan can play a major role in this regard. The Global South is mentioned in the context of relations with the Japanese government or corporations in more than 20% of references.

But the focus of the use of the term has shifted. Between 2024 and 2026, the “Global South” appeared most commonly in the context of what the newspaper sees as a struggle for influence between China and Western countries. Specifically, many references are written based on the understanding that the power of the US and other Western countries is waning, and that China is working to win over the countries of the Global South to their side. Such portrayals accounted for almost 30% of references.

Mentions of the Global South were often linked with armed conflicts. As we have seen, the use of the Global South label in Japan originated from the Russia-Ukraine war. It would later be connected to the genocide in Gaza, and US-Israeli attacks on Iran, among others.

Destruction in Gaza, 2023 (Photo: WAFA / Wikimedia Commons [Public domain])

In a broader sense, a considerable number of mentions by the Asahi Shimbun pointed to what the newspaper saw as a general rise in the Global South as a force to be reckoned with in world politics. This was seen perhaps most notably surrounding the G20 summits, in which key Global South countries were perceived as being increasingly assertive. The Global South was often described in articles as a grouping with a “rising presence” in the world. We have seen such portrayals in previous coverage as well.

Broadening perspectives

On the whole, Japanese media coverage that mentions the Global South has, from the outset, been written primarily from the perspective of countries that are not in the Global South. In the Asahi Shimbun, a number of articles between 2024 and 2026 included mentions written from the perspective of individual countries, such as India or Indonesia, or Africa as a continent. But such references remained relatively low in number, making up roughly 14% of the total.

At the same time, it is interesting to note that while coverage of the Global South in the Asahi Shimbun is on the decline in terms of quantity, the breadth of the portrayal has expanded somewhat. It has progressed well beyond its initial focus on Japanese government perspectives of the Global South. For one, it has published some limited recognition that the Global South is not a monolithic bloc sharing the same interests and concerns.

Perspectives critical of Western countries have also emerged. As it became clear that a genocide was occurring in Gaza, for example, some articles by the Asahi Shimbun began pointing out how people in the countries of the Global South were well aware of the double standards exhibited by powerful Western countries regarding their support for the rule of law in international relations. That is, the Western countries who cited international law in calling for the support of the Global South regarding Ukraine, were complicit in violating that law in Gaza.

A series of articles published by the Asahi Shimbun since 2025 under the title of “The illusion of an empire — A world order falling apart”, has also broadened the way in which the Global South is covered. One article in this series, for example, was able to make a point rarely seen in the Japanese media – that the wealth of the countries of the Global South continue to be exploited by the Global North. Focusing on the former French colonies of Africa, the article noted that “Neo-colonialism is a problem common to the Global South countries. In Africa, large companies from major powers move in, buy resources, process them, and then sell them for huge profits.” Also, importantly, a number of articles published under this series give a direct voice to people from the Global South.

Artisanal gold mining, Senegal (Photo: UN Women Africa / Flickr [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0])

There remains much that is problematic about the Japanese media’s coverage of the Global South. They are perhaps now more able to offer some degree of criticism about US violations of international law in the Global South than they used to be, at least while Donald Trump is in power. But they are still largely unwilling or unable to grapple with the Japanese government’s support for US violations of international law in those countries in the decades to date. Nor are they ready to discuss the involvement of Japanese corporations in the continued exploitation of the people of the Global South.

Rise and fall?

The fall in the use of the term Global South is not necessarily an issue of great concern. This label lumps together such a broad range of countries around the world that its usefulness can be rather limited. And there are other terms that can be used in its place. Although the frequently used term “developing countries” is indeed problematic, low- and middle-income countries or other such phrases can substitute to a degree for the Global South.

The sudden rise and subsequent fall in the use of the label does, however, lead us to question the media’s tendency to follow the lead of their government, even in the selection of terminology they use to describe the world.

An article in the Asahi Shimbun posits that the spread of the term “Global South” in the 2020s came about “In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East, and the establishment of the second Trump U.S. administration.” This is not really an accurate assessment. It skips over the Japanese government’s role in leading the leading the process, and fails to note that the use of the term declined almost as quickly as it rose in 2023 in Japanese media coverage of the world.

But with articles in these newspapers still asserting the importance of the “Global South”, even as their own coverage appears to be dropping the use of the term itself, this may be a good time for reflection on the media’s coverage of the world as a whole.