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China Paves Way to Global Dominance Resting on US Marshall Plan

© AP Photo / Lefteris PitarakisChinese students hold a puppet depicting a dragon and wave their national flags
Chinese students hold a puppet depicting a dragon and  wave their national flags - Sputnik International
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While the US and Europe focus their efforts against the spread of Islamic State, China is skillfully mastering its way towards dominance in the global economy; the pattern is very similar to that of the Marshall Plan the US applied in Europe in the post-WWII years to counteract the Soviet influence, according to a French economist.

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China is paving its way to dominance in the global economy very much based on the Marshall Plan the US used in Europe in the post-WWII years, French economist and lecturer in economics at the Pierre Mendes-France University in Grenoble Mylène Gaulard said in her interview with the Atlantico news website.

Gaulard explained that, similar to the US in Europe, China is now conquering foreign markets and gaining control over the developing countries of the South Asia.

“Since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, the country actually puts more emphasis on the so-called ‘soft power’. Besides the economic and financial ties, China helps [the developing] countries finance infrastructure projects and increases the development aid paid to countries where it has strong interests,” she said.

As the Marshall Plan implemented by the United States in Europe to counter the Soviet influence after the Second World War, the new investment bank, created by China to finance infrastructure projects in Asia, will defend its interests in these countries,” she explained.

She added that it will also facilitate Chinese business investments, exports of Chinese products and will ensure the supply of its raw materials.

The constant increase in Chinese military spending, Gaulard said, is a sign of the "hard power" used to gain an increasing role in the region.

China is nowadays more and more present in Africa, Central Asia and Latin America. Chinese companies, private or public, are being settled in countries rich in raw materials and free trade agreements are being signed with these countries, she continued.

The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Europe in the post-war years.

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The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-devastated regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, make seventeen European countries prosperous again, and thus prevent the spread of communism.

The United States feared that the poverty, unemployment, and dislocation of the post-World War II period were reinforcing the appeal of communist parties to voters in Western Europe.

The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948.

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