Would you believe that the East has become the victim of imperialism twice?
“Imperialism : The policy of extending a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations.”

The First Time:
This was the time when a Technologically superior British army swept though and colonized large regions and siphoned of large amount of gold and other precious resources from its colonies. What do you think they did with the gold? They funded production of goods. To put it simply, the rest of the world was funding the production in Britain. At times they were paying to produce and then buying it as well. This was the economic hegemony propagated during the 19th century.

The Second Time:
This time the West had to device a more subtle, cerebral attack. For in the modern world , wars of aggression are not looked upon kindly. To cut a long story very short…After the world war the $ became the world reserve currency. The demand for $ was always kept artificially high (Iraq war, SE Asian crisis).
This has culminated in the Hayekian Misallocation that exists today. America succeeded in creating a halo around the $. The rest of the world has disregarded the fact that the $ is worth nothing and has bought into the notion that $ is the panacea for all future problems. Asian savings economies started hoarding the $. For example…China started producing goods in large quantities and supplied it to America. They accumulated 2 trillion $ in forex reserves. 600 Billion $ out of these reserves were parked in US treasury bonds (loans to the US). These loans trickled down to the economy and stoked the flames of consumerism and the real estate bubble. To put it simply, we produced their goods and loaned them the money to buy it as well…and to top it all the collateral that they have given us (T-bonds) are probably useless.. (because the economy is not productive enough to repay the loans).

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