These are uncertain times for global economic governance. For over six decades after the second world war the west framed the rules of engagement for the global economy.

In the initial years, the United States was the preeminent power, which oversaw the creation of the Bretton Woods system (International Monetary Fund and World Bank) and the initial rounds of trade liberalization under the newly-born General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (which became the World Trade Organization at the end of the Uruguay Round in 1993).

As Europe recovered from the ravages of war and Japan launched on its high growth phase, these new leviathans (especially Europe) increasingly asserted themselves and won greater voice and roles in world economic governance. But it was still an essentially western enterprise, with a demilitarized Japan content to go along in return for an American nuclear umbrella.

The Soviet Union and its satellites were not an integral part of this economic system and the developing countries didn’t carry significant economic clout, not even the populous Asian giants of China and India.