However some proponents of the Asian Century respond that since the two most populous countries (China and India) are in Asia then it's only natural that they will play a bigger role in the world's affairs than smaller countries and thus it won't be a multipolar century. Finally, although the British Empire was a superpower during the nineteenth century, controlling nearly a quarter of the world's area and population, during the 20th century there was still a balance of political power with the British and other European colonial empires from 1900 until 1945, and with the US and the Soviet Union from 1945 until 1991.