>This article was interesting. I think you might like it.
>
>Waving Goodbye to Hegemony
>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27world-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Seems like the NYT has switched from being a newspaper to being a club, public library or a lodge. You need to become a member.

>In America’s own hemisphere, from Canada to Cuba to Chávez’s Venezuela, China is cutting massive resource and investment deals. Across the globe, it is deploying tens of thousands of its own engineers, aid workers, dam-builders and covert military personnel. In Africa, China is not only securing energy supplies; it is also making major strategic investments in the financial sector.

The answer to which was the good ole American ingenuity: invent new financial instruments that only few know how to play, then write some music for them and arrange for a global symphonic orchestra. We're just listening to the crashcendo at the moment :)