“Is the term ‘the Third World’ Still Relevant in the Twenty-First Century?”

As the global political and economic situation has changed greatly in the past few decades, there have been hot debates on whether the term “the Third World” is still relevant today. In my opinion, the term “the Third World” is no longer relevant in the twenty-first century. The term “the Third World” emerged in the special historical background of the Cold War, and experienced an evolution of meaning throughout the second half of the 20th century. Created by Alfred Sauvy in 1952, it was firstly used to distinguish the newly independent states from the First World and the Second World, which meant the Capitalist world led by the US and the Socialist world led by the USSR. The two superpowers competed to impose their ideology and development path on the Third World countries to strengthen their power. However, the Third World countries tried to keep away from the East-West rivalry, cooperate in a non-aligned way and seek a “third path”. As the Cold War went to its late period, the meaning of “the Third World” shifted its stress from political to economic classification, taking the mainly economically-defined meaning of “poor” countries. Since then, the international political and economic environment has been further changed, and the term “the Third World” is no longer relevant now for the following reasons.
Firstly, the disparity among the current so-called “Third World countries” is so big that these countries can no longer be homogenized into a single group. First of all, there is notable difference in their speed and efficiency of development. This leads to large disparity in national power, economic growth and political influence among these countries. For example, the BRICS have notable share of global economy and large influences on international agenda, while the