China at the centre of the global trading system
The 19th and 20th Centuries have accustomed people in all parts of the world to accept an international order largely defined by Anglo-American powers.
Over recent decades, a challenge to this order has emerged.
But this has been discreet and little remarked. It has not openly contested the authority of Anglo-American projection of military power, control of the global financial system and capacity to dominate critical commodity supplies reconciles most people to a continuation of this order.
East Asian economies have raised the possibility of a new order by nurturing highly productive economies and accumulating substantial financial reserves. This achievement recalls the fact that for several millennia until the beginning g of the 19th Century China was the central and leading production, trading and technological power.
Evidence is accumulating that all the Confucian-Daoist communities of East Asia are better led, educated and organised for the mass production of hi-tech merchandise. Moreover, they have a profound cultural wisdom that equips them well to compete in all areas of human activity.
The traditional tributary state relationship with China is much more benign that often suggested in English language materia. In fact, the United States relationship of increasing indebtedness to China might even be interpreted as the beginning of such a relationship. Western powers will need to explore more seriously the character of Chinese traditional civilisation if they are to prosper as the 21st Century advances.