The US is the leading power (west) - but I don't think you can call Iran and NK russian satellites. They do their own thing and they don't really like each other - they are just united against the US. And China is in the same boat.
And south america is a big factor on its own as well, etc. etc.
And learning chinese is likely not a bad investition, but no one knows how the future will unfold. (just read some old predictions and see how they all turned wrong)
Australia, NZ, Japan, and South Korea are potentially better examples of direct US satellites. They still have plenty of sovereignty, and their own cultures, but would I suspect, end up in difficult place if US vanished in the blink of an Eye.
A lot, but not all, of it is shared values around democracy. In a lot of ways the US doesn't actually lead this at all. It's the biggest player on the block, sure, but not the best example.
Neither country distributes spoils through public markets. In both, though China far more, what matters is political currency. In India, wealth is broadly held through politically-connected industries and real estate.
Remembering the "21 lessons for the 21st century" and how Harari described the arm-wrestling between the various ideologies/worlds, I see the the world is split in 3 (3.5) pieces.
1) The West (US-EU-satellites - writing first coz I'm in it)
2) The anti-west: Russia and satellites, Iran, NK, etc.)(they broke SO MANY EGGS but still - no omelette - well apart from the very few who rule via death)
3) The indifferent giants (they are planning their own world domination - soon)(see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8)(China is next, then perhaps India(?))
0.5) The remaining 0.5 (e.g. some African countries that will just follow whoever gives them goodies/is the next global overlord).
In IT I use the phrase: the more you do, the more you need to do. I.e. you have 10 systems, you need to do 100 things (backups, encryption, training, etc.). When you go to 20 systems and 5 are talking to each other you also need job schedulers, and you add in the connected dots and complexity (thus more assets produce more effort)
You got a wikipedia? There is a new attack/manipulation opportunity (available to all the players). The more you got, the more you need to do.
Now, why I care.. (this is not about politics/religion)
I got some stocks and mutual funds. If the "West" is going "down", I want to make sure that my/the next generations will not receive a bunch of SP500 that is worth $0, so do I start NOW to buy "China", "India"? Also, should we be telling our kids to start learning Chinese? (as we were told to learn English)
What should we start doing NOW to be better positioned in the Future? (my favorite Future related drawing: https://puzzledpagan.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/doomfuture....)