The core-periphery distinction needs significant reformulationThis is because capitalist accumulation is now occurring through two sub-systems of accumulation-- one production-based and the other finance-driveneach with their own cores and peripheries. The two sub-systems interact and even overlap, but in ways that are uneven and somewhat ad hoc.To mention the production based sub-system first. This is still largely national, and by and large the standard core-periphery distinction still applies here. Hence Germany is the core of the European sub-system, with the rest of Europe (but especially eastern and southern Europe as its periphery). Where Asia is concerned, China is clearly at the core, but its periphery can be divided-up in terms of a set of diverse economic functions which extend beyond Asia: Africa because it supplies raw material for Chinas economy (as does Australia); and even the US because its debt-driven consumption draws in a huge proportion of Chinese exports, and therefore the US is semi-peripheral with regard to China (apropos Dougs comment). Where the Americas are concerned, the US is no longer a core centre of production-- we can anticipate that itll be overtaken in the next 2-3 decades by Brazil.The finance-driven sector has an almost completely different character. Its cores are city-based, unlike the production-based cores which have nation-states as their foci: Singapore is the Asian core, London is the European (but also the Commonwealth) core, and New York is still the financial core for the entire world. Interesting divergences of interest are revealed by this two-strand model:Europe has two cores: Germany (production) and London/UK (finance), which perhaps accounts for the tensions and ambivalences between the two in the current euro crisis.Asia also has two cores: China (production) and Singapore (finance), but since the size of Chinas economy is vastly greater than Singapores, here China is clearly dominant overall with Singapore belonging in general to a kind of semi-periphery.The Americas: The US is living on borrowed time, for now staying above water because of its huge superiority in the financial sub-system worldwide. But this can be overturned overnight. E.g. if China is really annoyed by some US action (over Taiwan say), all it has to do is throw into the currency markets $1 trillion of its US dollar currency holdings. This will involve massive setbacks to Chinas economy, which it can survive at great cost, but the USs economy will be sunk like a stone. The impact on the rest of the world will be catastrophic, since most other economies hold dollar reserves. But China is in a position to survive here, whereas the US is not. It is clear who calls the tune here.Moreover, resources and capacities in the one sub-system can compensate for deficits in the other. The prime exemplar here is the US, which uses its primacy in the financial sub-system to compensate for what it lacks in the production sub-system. The UK does something similar vis--vis Europe, as does tiny Singapore with regard to Asia.