Liberation day. I think aptly named. Liberation from American hegemony, rapidly collapsing as Trump overplays his hand. However, this isn’t the comfy liberal freedom we know and love. Rather, liberation day marks the dawn of global anarchy, and who knows what that means.

I have spent all week obsessively reading about the US-China trade war, drawn to the drama like a moth to a flame. It marks a moment where the power of the US has faltered, and a new world order becomes undeniable: much of the West’s power is illusory, while China’s power is real.

The question is: what do we do as our global dominance declines? The US clings to its grip on power, even as its consumption accelerates its fall. Europe, meanwhile, seems more accepting of decline but blind to the epochal revolution underway.

I argue that internationalist empathy for the Global South aligns with the rational self-interest of the West. As the West’s relevance fades, it is strategically vital that we foster industrial growth in the Global South—not to preserve the liberal world order, but to prevent a Chinese-dominated one. Western hegemony is finished. The West can no longer dictate the rules of trade. As China rises, the West risks handing over global leadership through the West’s own short-sightedness. If the West is not proactive, this will happen anyway.

Imagine a world where China’s GDP per capita matches the EU’s. China’s economic might would outweigh the entire G7 combined. Those who don’t wan’t an authoritarian government to become a hegemon must prepare for this world by empowering new players now.

To preserve free speech and democracy, we need strong counterweights to China. While the West’s economic might has diminished, the West still controls most global investment capital. They must use it to help countries like India and those across Africa and South America rise as superpowers. This will hopefully result in a multipolar world where, whilst the West is close to irrelevant, countries that broadly share the its values are collectively more powerful than China.

India’s growth outpacing China’s is a positive sign. As a democracy of 1.4 billion people, it has the potential to surpass the USA and EU combined in power. The West must champion this.

However, Western exploitation continues in Africa and South America. These regions lack the freedom to develop strong domestic industries or take a seat to write the rules of the global order. We must support their growth not out of charity or guilt, but because it is in the West’s own long-term self-interest. This cannot be a matter of imposing a Western vision of growth. Developing countries across the world are tired of being told what to do by their former colonial overlords. They must ask: what do these nations want from us? Within reason, the West should just let them have it. What barriers do they want removed? Remove them. What practices do they want us to stop? What global economic structures will work for them? They know better how to develop their economies.

On the other hand, if there’s nothing the West can do or not do to help them grow their economic power, then this whole article would be moot. I’m not a leader or bureaucrat of a developing country, but here are some rough ideas of concessions they might want from the West:

• Let Africa and South America sell manufactured goods to the West, without giving up their right to protect their industries.

• Allow them to subsidize agriculture and set tariffs on their imports as they wish to foster domestic industry.

• Offer infrastructure and business loans (not for resource extraction) with minimal conditions, competing with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

• Loosen Western / international IP laws so they don’t need to go to the trouble to reverse engineer and steal our technology.

• End the structural adjustment conditional lending of the IMF and World Bank that forces countries to sell off strategic assets.

We must accept small economic costs in trade negotiations today for a more balanced global order tomorrow. For instance, supporting African car manufacturing may threaten European producers, but preserving industries at all costs risks a future where China’s dominance is absolute. For the ends of creating a multipolar world not dominated by China, I argue it’s in the West’s interest to accept losses in its trade with the rest of the Global South. Whilst the West might never again have a competitive advantage against China building cars, emergent markets could.

None of this is easy. Western businesses and politicians tend to favor short-term profits and election cycles over long-term strategy. Business interests might not even care if China becomes a global hegemonic power and recreates the world in its image. Giving up trade relations that benefit the West seems quite massachistic. Yet, there is precedent: After WWII, the US invested heavily in rebuilding Europe to contain communism. The calamity of WW2 could have been the end of European competition with high value American industry, and yet America allowed European companies favourable access to their markets. Today, the perceived threat is different. Chinese development loans do not coerce countries into Beijing’s orbit in the same way as the Soviet threat did. There isn’t the same short-term risk to motivate the West into empowering its allies. At the same time, the power of the state to forge a direction based on the national interest has weakened as large corporations have become rule makers rather than takers.

Some pills, however, could be easier for us to swallow, like promoting Western companies moving their production from China to other developing economies. Incentivizing diversification away from China is already seen as in the self interest of many Western countries.

However this strategy is honestly very difficult. Even urgent matters of national interest can struggle to compete with the power of capital to shape policy in its short-term interest. Neither is inviting all local industry to outsource to West Africa an election-winning policy. There are huge structural constraints stopping any of this coming to pass. It’s more likely China will become a dominant super power whilst the West scramble to try and hold on to their historic power over others.

Regardless of how difficult this task may be, I hope you conclude it’s in the West’s self-interest. The West is likely each year the most powerful it will ever be, as each year it continues its decline. Thus, each moment is the best time to shape the future balance of power, as the West won’t be in the position too for much longer.