In a few days’ time, the outcome of the US presidential election will be known. Whichever of the two principal candidates wins, it is likely that sooner or later they will have to accept that the old global order has changed, and the country they need to reach an accommodation with, as an equal, is China.
Although Europe and Russia would have it that they too are world powers and opinion formers in the multipolar world that is emerging, neither has as strong or convincing an economic, military, diplomatic, and political case as China has, to be in the first division of global power.