The world changed this year. For the first time in recorded history, India and China are the drivers of the global economy. The implications are profound, though not recognised as yet by the world's premier economic club, the Group of Seven, which seems more and more to control a wheel detached from the rudder.
The two Asian powers, devoid of western aid, transformed without mimicking the developed world and prevented the west spiralling into recession. However, the west risks splitting the global economy into rival camps, and harming itself, by denying them a role commensurate with their economic clout.
Asia demonstrated its economic might as the US economy, which has driven the west's economy for a century, slowed. The havoc in the US housing market and the credit crunch produced turmoil in British firms, and heads toppled among top western bank managers. Acting as an external engine, Asia's rapidly industrialising giants checked the malaise by creating unprecedented demand for western goods.
Indians and Chinese pay for western products from profits earned by selling cheap manufactured goods and services to the industrialised world, thereby also checking price inflation in the developed world.
Another beneficiary is resource-rich Africa. Sino-Indian manufacturing and infrastructure projects increase demand, pushing up commodity prices and, in short, enmeshing the world in an inextricable economic web.
Goldman Sachs warns that western academics and policymakers have missed the melding underway around them.