The East rises as the West retreats
The rise of the East and the retreat of the West have been one of the world’s most important developments since the end of the World War II in 1945.
We are less conscious of this profound and ongoing change in the United States than are people in other parts of the world, especially in Europe. We did not have an empire to turn us into a world power, as did Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. We looked inward to the vast yet domestic empire on our doorstep, developing an economy to match it.
So, too, did China look inward. Historically, it was not much interested in acquiring an overseas empire, believing it already was the center of the universe and needed little, if anything from the outside world. Japan felt much the same way. Europe, however, looked outward as it had done since the days of the Roman Empire. During the age of sail and exploration, or from the 16th to the 19th centuries, it was the East and its wealth that attracted the Europeans and later, the Americans.
The end of World War II left the United States as unquestionably the world’s most powerful nation. Although we had lost some 400,000 members of the military in battle, World War II left the U.S. itself untouched and intact. Our cities had not been bombed and our industrial base was bigger and stronger than ever. Our unravaged land had become the world’s breadbasket. After the war, no nation could touch us. Even the newly established United Nations was headquartered in New York despite the misgivings of many conservatives.
But the world began to change in ways largely unforeseen by the victors of World War II, especially Britain and America. The days of empire were coming to a close, a process encouraged by the Soviet Union in its rivalry with the West. In this welter of conflicting interests, the U.S. and western Europe formed NATO, the world’s most successful alliance.
At the end of World War II, vast stretches of the world were still in Western hands. The British held India (including modern-day Pakistan), the heart of the British empire. It also held Burma, Singapore and Hong Kong. All of East Africa was in British hands, as was much of the Middle East, including the Suez Canal. The Persian Gulf was referred to — and correctly — as a British lake. Before World War II, the Royal navy was virtually the world’s policemen. And Britain was not the only empire.
The French empire included Algeria, Morocco and much of West Africa. The French also controlled Indochina, to include Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. We need to remember that the Netherlands, too, had a vast East Asian empire, then called the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia.
As a result of World War II, those empires were about to change.
The British were the first to acknowledge the change. Amid great civil strife, Britain granted India its independence in 1947, marching peacefully out of India with flags flying and bands playing. The rest of the empire achieved independence during the 1960s. The French fought the changes, beginning in Vietnam in 1946. They eventually lost in 1954, leaving a Vietnam divided in two and ready for the next, or American war, which finally ended in 1975. The French tried desperately to hold on to Algeria, which they thought of as part of France. It took Gen. Charles de Gaulle to end the war and grant Algeria its independence.
The Dutch also decided to fight, losing the struggle and granting the Dutch East Indies independence in 1949.
Portugal’s two vast African territories, Angola and Mozambique, achieved independence in 1975, after much bloodshed.
Largely because they are nuclear powers with the means and political will to use their weapons, the French and the British remain great powers, but not superpowers.
Europe’s former Asian and African colonies have come into their own, meaning there has been a major shift in power and influence from the West to the East.
The shift is especially pronounced as China has risen to become the world’s second biggest economy. This continuing shift in power is the result of so much of the world is reasserting itself. We need to adjust without rancor or recrimination.