William Pesek is an award-winning Tokyo-based journalist and author of "Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan's Lost Decades."
As BRICs turns 20, the race is on to explain why the thesis developed by Jim O'Neill -- the British economist who coined the acronym that stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China -- did not pan out. No, those four countries are not about to turn the globe upside down and shake it for spare change.