Not a day went by without commentators converging on this unassailable interpretation: to understand the world, one must subscribe to the theory of spheres of influence, supposedly divided among the major powers. This interpretation certainly contains elements of truth, but is it actually useful? Four key factors limit its heuristic value.
First, in 2025, it was infinitely more difficult to construct spheres of influence than it was thirty or fifty years ago. During the Cold War, these spheres existed and were widely accepted. Latin America was under total American control, Asia was divided, as was Europe. Michel Debré, then France’s foreign minister, said in the aftermath of the Russian intervention in Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968: “Naturally, we will do nothing.”
The impulse to divide up the world is a familiar pattern for nation-states. Even before the end of World War II, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed to the Soviets and the British the idea of the “four policemen,” tasked with ruling the world. For him, the fourth was not France, but China.
With the end of the Cold War and the rise of China, these zones of influence unraveled. Take the case of Latin America. In 2000, the US was the main trading partner for all of Latin America and Central America. Today, China holds that role in almost all these countries. Chile conducted 35% of its trade with Beijing; Brazil, 25%. The arrival of Donald Trump in power in the US even increased Brasília’s dependence on Beijing, as the closure of the American market prompted China to buy more Brazilian soybeans. How, through simple political will, could the US reverse this structural diversification?
Examples could be multiplied, notably in Africa. Like Latin America, its main trading partner is China, but should we conclude that the continent is now under total Chinese control? That is far from certain. For proof: the United Arab Emirates is the leading investor on the continent.
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