Still reading the piece, but what stroke me while is how the notion of Global North/South has become weirder and weirder as international economy progresses.

I see how there's no magic bullet or really good term to express a notion of two groups of countries. But the metaphor gets really tired when Australia is part of the Global North and Taiwan or China are in the Global South.

I'm not versed enough in economy, but I'd wager Brazil and Mexico could also be controversial entries, if we had to compare them to Russia for instance.

I feel this is better addressed with terms like G20 which don't rely on any metaphor or imagery.