Thirty years later, China essayed the role of being the world economy’s periphery and selling cheap widgets to a revamped core — the West and Japan — with the help of an undervalued exchange rate.

The “China phase”, they said, would play out over 10 to 20 years as the world economy absorbed 200 million surplus rural Chinese workers at the rate of 10 million to 20 million a year.

By the time Dooley et al got down to writing The Revived Bretton Woods System’s First Decade in 2014, China’s reserves were peaking, at about US$4-trillion, from under $300-billion at the time of their original study.

Hundreds of millions of Indian workers need jobs, even if that means making things that China can supply far more competitively

Then there’s Covid-19, and the worst global recession since the Great Depression.

Rules of engagement

The Western tech industry, which remains broadly excluded from China, will probably advocate for India.