Brad Setser dissects the Bretton Woods analogy used to describe the current global monetary system, country by country. Here's a piece:
Yet if China anchors the system, along with the US, through its willingness to build up its dollar reserves to keep the renminbi-dollar stable, and to keep the renminbi weak, it hardly does so because it is a strategic ally of the US. Economically, China is the West Germany of Bretton Woods 2, but politically, China is clearly not the West Germany of Bretton Woods 2. The US -- or at least some in the US -- talk of the China as a strategic rival, and at least some in China think of the US in a similar terms. The analogy to France does not quite work either -- France and the US were allies drifting apart, in part because French fears of Germany were waning, and it is not clear that China and the US ever fully transitioned from Cold War adversaries to allies.
That makes for an unusually strange mix. Two potential strategic rivals, at least in the Pacific, anchor two ends of an unbalanced economic relationship.
I recommend the entire post.