The economic and political crisis currently affecting the West is but one outcome of an ongoing metamorphosis of the international system, which has been determined by rapid structural changes to the global economy over the last three decades. In this brief period of time, half of humanity has embraced capitalism and become linked to the global market. Deng Xiaoping’s introduction of market reforms to the Chinese economy was the beginning of a revolution that has had immense consequences. The implosion of the Soviet Union and the rapid expansion of market forces, with unlimited flows of capital circulating at Internet speed, has created new development opportunities for hundreds of millions of people. By the time the global financial crisis exploded in 2008, the West’s overindebted economies were in a mess and China and other states in the Asia-Pacific had risen. A new balance of power has now emerged with the erosion of Western influence.