In Latin America and elsewhere, the world is undergoing tectonic movements that indicate the birth of a new world order with new rules of play. For much of the past decade, dynamism in world commerce and finance has been shifting from the Atlantic basin to the Pacific. While the international economy has shown fragility and the developed economies – particularly the European Union and the United States – have shown slow growth since the crisis of 2008, China and the emerging economies of the Asian-Pacific region have experienced sustained growth. China, now the second biggest economy in the world, has been the driver of that growth and, according to most projections, is poised to overtake the United States as the biggest. After several centuries in which power has been concentrated in the West, the emergence of new powers in a multi-polar world will naturally bring about changes in the norms and rules governing the international agenda.