<P> From 1941 and the German attack on the Soviet Union, the Allied Coalition operated on the unwritten assumption that the Western Powers and the Soviet Union had each its own sphere of influence . The presumption of the US - British and Soviet unrestricted rights in their respective spheres started causing difficulties as the Nazi - controlled territory shrank and the allied powers successively liberated other states . The wartime spheres lacked a practical definition and it had never been determined if a dominant allied power was entitled to unilateral decisions only in the area of military activity, or could also force its will regarding political, social and economic future of other states . This overly informal system backfired during the late stages of the war and afterwards, when it turned out that the Soviets and the Western Allies had very different ideas concerning the administration and future development of the liberated regions and of Germany itself . </P> <P> During the Cold War the Baltic states, Central Europe, some countries in Eastern Europe, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea, and, until the Sino - Soviet split, the People's Republic of China, among other countries at various times, were said to lie under the Soviet sphere of influence . Western Europe, Oceania, Japan, and South Korea, among other places, were often said to lie under the sphere of influence of the United States . However, the level of control exerted in these spheres varied and was not absolute . For instance, France and Great Britain were able to act independently to invade (with Israel) the Suez Canal (they were later forced to withdraw by joint U.S. and Soviet pressure). Later, France was also able to withdraw from the military arm of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Cuba often took positions that put it at odds with its Soviet ally, including momentary alliances with the People's Republic of China, economic reorganizations, and providing support for insurgencies in Africa and the Americas without prior approval from the Soviet Union . </P> <P> With the end of the Cold War, the Eastern Bloc fell apart, effectively ending the Soviet sphere of influence . Then in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, replaced by the Russian Federation and several ex-Soviet Republics became independent states . </P> <P> After the fall of the Soviet Union, the countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia that became independent were often portrayed as part of the Russian Federation's "sphere of influence". According to Ulrich Speck, writing for Carnegie Europe, "After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the West's focus was on Russia . Western nations implicitly treated the post-Soviet countries (besides the Baltic states) as Russia's sphere of influence ." </P>

Why did western countries want to establish spheres of influence in china