Gorbachev’s report to the 27th Party Congress reflected of these insights. He noted that the economic, financial, and technological superiority that the United States had exercised in the past had been “put to a serious test” and that Western Europe and Japan were challenging the United States even in areas where it had traditionally exerted undisputed hegemony, such as high technology. Many sectors of West European public opinion, he claimed, “had begun to openly discuss whether U.S. policy coincides with Western Europe’s notions about its own security and whether the U.S. was going too far in its claims to leadership”. While admitting that the economic , political, military and other common interests of the three centers of power (the United States, Japan, and Western Europe) could not be expected to break up in the near future, he warned that the United States “should not expect unquestioning obedience of its allies” and predicted that “contradictions” within the capitalist camp were likely to increase as a result of the emergence of new centers of power.