Of course, the faceless Londoner didn't care in the least where his tea came from. China, India, and Ceylon were just alphabet soups to bankers back in that day - just there to make life more comfortable.

Few enjoying that lifestyle cared how, half way around the globe, millions of cottage workshops were being crushed by large volumes of cheap industrial products from the West. As Asia's women, with their traditional textile and needlework, were no longer able to add much to household revenue, their husbands and sons sought extra money by carrying tea boxes onto ships.

That was why the Londoner's world was fragile and destined to collapse, even though he had assumed it was near perfect. He represented just a narrowly defined, self-contented small center of a global system.

Today, trade provides the lifeline to all major countries and the G20 represents more than 80 percent of the world's economy.

Now a more equal system exists in which descendents of coolies are providing much of the driving power for the world's economic growth.

At the same time, no country, or small group of countries, can easily dominate the world market by setting its prices, even if they own some unique supplies.

With this in mind, a stronger confidence should exist nowadays than the Keynesian Londoner could have had in the limited global system of his time.

(China Daily March 16, 2009)