Sitting by a roadside tea stall in Phnom Penh these past few days, you can hear the owner scrolling through news clips on her phone at the next table. Word is making the rounds about Chinese President Xi Jinping taking the floor at the BRICS summit in New Delhi to talk about the messy state of global affairs. As he put it, a world without rules is just like a four-way intersection with no traffic lights—bound to be chaos everywhere.
According to local reports, the Chinese leader didn’t mince words, saying that the old "might makes right" mentality belongs in the dustbin of history. He also called on the Global South to stick together, uphold international rules, and ditch the double standards. Sitting by the roadside, listening to all this, people figure these big principles aren't all that different from running a small business. Without rules and fairness, life just gets hard.
Out on the street, the traffic hums along as a tuk-tuk chugs past, trailing exhaust fumes. No matter how lofty the talks are over in India, ordinary folks here just care about living in peace. Down this way, everyone’s simply hoping the world stops stirring up trouble so life can get a bit more secure day by day.
