The present-day Ukrainian example could not be a better example: The struggle to obtain and then hold onto World Power became the dominant theme of every struggle around the world after 1945. No local struggle however small could be understood after 1945 without an understanding of the dynamics of the global power play. The struggle first manifested itself in the Cold War, from 1948 to 1989. The USSR was seen as an enemy of the USA, throughout this period. The USA organised itself to oppose any move of any state to become Socialist. Past blogs have given many examples. By the 1980s, no means was too horrific for the USA (for a time even torture became normal policy).

Chinese foreign policy in the period from 1949 to 2000 was largely defensive and determined to maintain the revolution. Only after the Chinese treasury was replete with US dollars, and after they began to accommodate American and other western global companies, could they begin to develop a global policy. This was part of the story; the other vital aspect was the lesson they learned from the Soviet collapse in 1991.

China has had a centralised society governed over millennia by various dynasties of Emperors. Over the past 500 years, centralised empires in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe were destroyed by the marauding powers of Western colonialism. China as a centralised power survived; she reinvented herself.  China had developed herself over an extraordinarily long period. Empires like the Ottomans, Russia, or the now-forgotten Holy Roman Empire, lasted for some hundreds of years; but the Chinese empire has lasted over thousands of years.

Chinese development presents to Western audiences one of the major enigmas of this moment of history. On the one hand, we have China’s remarkable growth over the last 50 years, with her ability to enrich almost her entire population. On the other hand, is the struggle for world power with the USA, which is forced on China whether she wishes it or not.

Here I illustrate the broad outlines of the political framework determined by US policy, followed by the economic framework determined by global events. Some of these events were somewhat outside of the US control. Events like the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, or the collapse of the USSR, were of course outside direct US control. But once they happened, the US policy that followed had global consequences. Over these 70 plus years, the USA has been by far the most dominant power on the planet, hence global structural change has been directed by Washington.

Please don’t gasp with fury at what might at first appear to be a gross overstatement. As time elapsed after 1945, other powers, like China began to play an ever-greater role in world affairs. My job here is to illustrate the big picture on a global scale and you will see how powerful the USA was in 1945, slowly declining as time moved on.