Paris, February 2, 2010 – China and India stopped being part of
what was called the “third world” when the “second” world, the
Communist world, disappeared in a shattering of global illusions in
1989.

Since then there has been a search to find a new King of the Global
Hill. The United States rejoiced for a few years in being the sole
superpower, considering it an opportunity to remake the world
according to its own advantage (including its effort to shove NATO
bases into Georgia and Ukraine).

The 9/11 attacks in 2001 gave it the opportunity and encouragement to
try remaking the Middle East and Asia. The effort has not produced
the desired results. In Afghanistan and Iraq the U.S. found itself
mired in interventions it has been unable successfully to conclude.
It has found itself drawn into deeper and much more dangerous
engagements in the political and military affairs of Pakistan, the
Iran nuclear imbroglio, and an out-of-control Israeli government.

Then came economic crisis. First the credit and Wall Street
collapse, an unexpected recoil of international opinion against the
American model of globalized capitalism, together with an
international consensus that the system has to be replaced on terms
that are not America’s terms.

China has assertively placed on the table its claims to international
status and authority, recognition of its geopolitical rank and
diplomatic weight, and its demand that international opposition or
interference cease with respect to its political claims on Tibet,
Taiwan, contested islands in the South China Sea, and – for future
attention – frontier adjustments with respect to North Korea,
Vietnam, and India.