The Bretton Woods system refers to the post-war international monetary system centered on the US dollar. As a supplement to the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, the General Agreement on Tariffs, together with the various agreements adopted by the Bretton Woods Conference, are collectively referred to as the "Bretton Woods System", which focuses on foreign exchange liberalization, capital liberalization and trade liberalization. The multilateral economic system forms the core content of the capitalist bloc and is a system that achieves U.S. economic hegemony in accordance with the principles formulated by the United States.

The formation of the Bretton Woods system temporarily ended the chaos in the monetary and financial fields before the war and maintained the normal operation of the post-war world monetary system. The fixed exchange rate system is one of the pillars of the Bretton Woods system, but it is different from the relative stability of exchange rates under the gold standard. Under a typical gold standard, gold coins not only have a certain gold content, but gold can be exported and imported freely, so the fluctuation limit of the exchange rate is narrow. The capitalist world economic crisis from 1929 to 1933 caused a crisis in the monetary system, led to the collapse of the gold standard, and caused chaos in international monetary and financial relations. The establishment of the Bretton Woods system centered on the US dollar gave international monetary and financial relations a unified standard and basis, and the chaotic situation was temporarily stabilized. The formation of the Bretton Woods system expanded world trade while maintaining relative stability. The United States has distributed large amounts of U.S. dollars to the world through gifts, credits, and purchases of foreign goods and services, which objectively plays a role in expanding the world's purchasing power. At the same time, the fixed exchange rate system has largely eliminated the turbulence caused by exchange rate fluctuations, stabilized the currency exchange rates of major countries to a certain extent, and is conducive to the development of international trade.

In the process of global economic integration, the US dollar, which used to dominate international finance, is developing towards multi-polarization. The international monetary system will move toward free floating of each country's exchange rates, diversification of international reserves, financial liberalization, and The trend of internationalization is developing. As the diversification trend of the world economy continues to strengthen, it is increasingly difficult for a single currency system to meet the needs of rapid economic development. It is no wonder that the Bretton Woods system is collapsing.

The Marshall Plan, officially known as the European Recovery Program, was a post-World War II U.S. plan to provide economic assistance and assistance in reconstruction to Western European countries that were devastated by the war. It has had a profound impact on the development of China and the world political landscape. The program was officially launched in July 1947 and lasted for four fiscal years. During this period, Western European countries received a total of US$13 billion in various forms of assistance from the United States including finance, technology, equipment, etc. through their participation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Most early scholars who studied the Marshall Plan regarded it as another successful example of American generosity. Most of the criticism of the Marshall Plan came from historians influenced by the revisionist school of the 1960s and 1970s. They viewed the Marshall Plan as a manifestation of U.S. economic imperialism. Through this plan, the United States attempted to control all aspects of Western Europe, just as the Soviet Union controlled Eastern Europe. The United States also sought to use the Marshall Plan to achieve its geopolitical goals, so it was anything but generous. Other historians have emphasized the economic benefits the program brought to the United States. It was precisely because of the destruction caused to Europe by the two world wars that the United States' industry and agriculture occupied a leading position in the world. Many U.S. private companies that grew up needed the new markets opened up by trade liberalization policies to make profits. Although the reconstruction of Europe at this time also needed products from the United States, Europeans who had not yet emerged from the shadow of World War II did not have enough dollars to import these necessary supplies. This reflects a basic economic problem - European capitalism is essentially plagued by a dollar shortage. The United States, on the other hand, has accumulated a large trade surplus, and its huge reserves are also growing. At the same time, the credit facilities of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) have become completely unable to cope with Western Europe's large trade deficits. The former can only help Europe solve its short-term deficit problem through some small loans. As for the important financial and reconstruction issues, there is nothing they can do. Therefore, the United States began to provide so-called "dollar credits" to Europe through various channels to help Europe solve these problems. The Marshall Plan was one of many ways. By the 1980s, there was a new view that the Marshall Plan did not play a decisive role in Europe's revival as previously thought. The first person to propose this idea was economic historian Alan S. Milward. German historian Gerd Hardach further elaborated on this idea in his 1994 book, Der Marshall Plan.

These historians point out that many European countries had already transitioned into a phase of economic growth long before large-scale U.S. aid arrived. Moreover, some countries that receive less aid develop faster. While the Marshall Plan did alleviate many of the difficulties in Europe's reconstruction process and played an important role in the recovery of some key sectors, overall Europe's economic growth after the post-war trough was not very closely linked to the Marshall Plan. In addition, many European socialists believe that since many wealthy Europeans transferred their funds to the safety of the United States during World War II, European governments can obtain equally considerable amounts of capital by nationalizing their corporate shares. Reconstruction funds.