The world order is shifting.
Historians may well look back at 2015 as providing some significant punctuation marks in this global rebalance.
America has received a bloody nose.
At midnight, Beijing time, on Tuesday, China announced that no less than 46 countries had applied to be founder members of China's rival to the World Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
The US has used the World Bank as an arm of its foreign policy for decades
Ever since China's powerful President Xi Jinping announced the formation of the new lending bank, US President Barack Obama's diplomats have been doing all they can to persuade countries not to join up.
The AIIB is a direct challenger to the US-led World Bank's supremacy.
Its purpose is to provide much needed investment in across Asia.
Economists reckon that for Asian countries to hit their true economic potential, a whopping $1tr will need to be ploughed into the region every year for the next 10 years.
Money from the bank will build roads, railways, mobile phone networks, airports and more.
So why the objection by America? Ostensibly, they said they were concerned about governance, accountability and transparency within the institution.
But there's another bigger worry.
The US government has significant concerns that the AIIB will simply act as an instrument of Chinese foreign policy allowing Beijing to exert more influence regionally.
Moreover, member states will be unwilling to criticise Beijing - more interested instead in being a compliant trading and lending partner.
Of course, America is right about part of that.
Their very own World Bank has been an arm of their own foreign policy for decades.
China's AIIB would be no different except that it would support a foreign policy that America doesn't like.
For a while, the American efforts to persuade allies not to join the bank seemed to be working. Australia, South Korea and Indonesia were all conspicuously absent at the inauguration ceremony in October.
But last month the UK said it would be joining. That prompted an unusual diplomatic spat between Washington and London with a White House official accusing Britain of "constantly accommodating" China.
Britain stood firm and smiled as many European neighbours followed suit: Germany, France, Italy.
Australia had a wobble but is now on board.
Brazil, India, Norway, South Korea, Russia, Spain, Turkey have all applied.
Among them, close allies of America. Japan is the only major economy which has chosen not to be a founder member.
It is quite a coup for China, especially as it comes at a time when Beijing is noticeably out of step, politically, with western nations.
President Xi has emerged as the most powerful, authoritarian, some say dictatorial, leader in China's Communist history.
With that in mind, how could China use the bank to influence foreign policy?
Some hypotheticals: China has territorial claims to large parts of the South China Sea.
Take the Philippines where the Spratly Islands are at the centre of a bitter dispute.
China is busy building a fast jet runway on an reef in the area - a bold, clear statement.
Once the AIIB is formed, could China use the offer of loans to force other Asian countries to back its claim?
Could it perhaps offer loans to the Philippines in return for Manila dropping their claim?
What about environmental issues?
The AIIB exists to build infrastructure.
China has been remarkably successful at building its own infrastructure.
But it has done so to the catastrophic detriment of the environment.
Bridges, roads, rail lines have calved China up. Dams have destroyed whole ecosystems and forests have been chopped down.
Could AIIB money prompt the same elsewhere in Asia?
And what about labour rights and procurement standards; both poor in China.
One concrete example of how the bank could be seen an instrument of Chinese foreign policy has already emerged.
Taiwan has applied to become a member. Why's that an issue? Because China doesn't recognise Taiwan as a country.
Beijing sees the island as a renegade province that will one day be returned to motherland.
Beijing has said this week that Taiwan can join the bank but only if it participates under "an appropriate name".
It's likely to comply and drop its official name - The Republic of China.
America seems to think it's better to stay out of the club.
Most of the rest of the world takes a different view - join the club and influence China from within.
All very well, as long as they do.
