For generations, these poorer regions of the world had put their trust in Western guidance, receiving chunks of aid dollars, holding elections (usually flawed and corrupt), and receiving often unpoliced investment from multinational corporations. China doggedly stuck to its own way forward, building cities from shanty villages and connecting people by road, rail, and air. It did so with such determination that in three years, from 2010 to 2013, it used more cement than the United States had in the whole of the twentieth century.37
