2010年元旦伊始，有关传媒界的争论不断。先是“谷歌”事件，而自去年就开始的、围绕畅销书《当中国统治世界》的论战最近突然升级，《美国基督教箴言报》等十几家世界级报刊、《凤凰网》等数十家国内鼎级媒体都参与热辨。
《当中国统治世界》是英国《卫报》专栏作家马丁?雅克2009年中期出版的新作。在该书的开篇，马丁?雅克引用了美国高盛公司一项最新研究：“到2027年，中国的经济规模将超过美国，2050年将达到美国的两倍。”雅克认为，“中国将取代美国的世界主导地位，西方将丧失文明操纵权，世界将按照中国概念重新塑造。”
《当中国统治世界》一书的副标题十分醒目――《中国的崛起和西方世界的衰落》，马丁?雅克的“疯狂预测”，激起了东西方各国褒贬不一的强烈反应。
On his first visit to China late last year, Barack Obama stuck closely to the script mapped out by his predecessors George W Bush and Bill Clinton.
He asserted that America welcomed China’s growing wealth and power. Relations between the US and China were not, he insisted, a “zero-sum game”. America was comfortable with a rising China.
Stefan Halper, a senior research fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge and a former official in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations, is having none of it. He believes that the coming decades will see an increasingly overt competition between the two nations. China, he asserts, “poses the most serious challenge to the United States since the half-century cold war struggle with the Soviets”. What is more, Halper is not particularly optimistic about America’s chances in this new struggle. His book is subtitled “How China’s Authoritarian Model will Dominate the Twenty-First Century”.
I was cheering, jumping up and down with joy, when I read the first few chapters of Martin’s Jacques’ book! The start of this book is a very in-your-face observation of reality that he calls contested modernities. In short, it he tells the reader that there is a huge MODERN thing heading your way, and it is called Chinese culture–get used to it. I have been saying this for years that China is a train coming toward the West and everyone is looking the wrong way. When I tell this to people back in the West, they get offended and hold on to the idea that Western values are still the pinical of culture and Chinese are all becoming Western, moving towards the West–the dreaded world is flat idea.
Jacques has some great observational skill that aligns well with my decades of experience. There is a lot here for overall understanding of cultural assumptions and what Chinese modernity means. The analysis is more sociological and Marxist in nature, but rings true. For researchers at all interested in Greater China, this book is important because it shows exactly why all assumptions need to be thrown away. Chinese culture brings it own modernity, and that is not related to the West, no matter how many Starbucks you see in Shanghai.
Clyde Warden
Een voorsmaakje van hoe de wereld er tegen het midden van deze eeuw zal uitzien? China staat aan het roer.Europa en de VS zijn gedegradeerd tot een tweederangsrol. Bejing wordt het nieuwe referentiepunt. Mandarijns de lingua franca. ‘CHINAZALDEREGELS BEPALEN, en het zal op zijn manier zijn.We kunnen er maar beter aan wennen.’ Gesprekmet MARTIN JACQUES, de Britse Chinakenner van de London School of Economics die een boek schreefwaar we het op zijn zachtst gezegdwat benauwd van krijgen.
Als Alice in Wonderland. Zo voelde ik mij tijdens het lezen van Martin Jacques’ wervelende opus over China. Nochtans verschenen de jongste jaren ontelbare werken over de razendsnelle opmars van het Rijk van het Midden. Maar die gaan meestal niet verder dan een beschrijving van het economische wonder dat zich in Oost-Azië voltrekt. Jacques gaat veel verder dan dat. In eenwaterval van data, cijfers, statistieken en analyses legt hij haarfijn bloot hoe de opkomst van China niet zomaar verbannen kan worden tot de handboeken economie. China zal de wereld veranderen.Opallemogelijkemanieren. En voorgoed. ‘When China Rules the World. The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the WesternWorld’ is eenwake-up call. Bang. Je hele wereldbeeld aan duigen. Provocerend, intrigerend en misschien nogal chargerend af en toe. Martin Jacques moet lachen als ik het hem vertel. In zijn zonnige appartement in het noorden van Londen ademt alles China. Foto’s, kunst, boeken, parafarnelia en zelfs meubels zijn uit het verre continent aangesleept. Jacques is niet zomaar een auteur die op basis van theoretische studies een fijne analyse maakt. Hij kent het land door en door.Het is op een hoogst dramatische maniermet zijn leven verweven.
Martin Jacques defied the odds to expose racial prejudice and medical negligence in a Hong Kong hospital. Here he tells of his feelings on learning that his 10-year struggle was over
The settlement approved by the Hong Kong high court last Wednesday in the legal action brought by me and my 11-year-old son, Ravi, against the Hospital Authority over the death of Harinder Veriah, my wife and Ravi’s mother, represents a major victory. It has taken 10 years and a huge commitment of emotion, time and resources. We have faced monumental obstacles. From the outset the Hospital Authority denied any responsibility and it has used its limitless funds to try to bludgeon us into submission.
31/03/10
Medical Negligence Case Settled
The Hong Kong Hospital Authority has agreed to pay a substantial sum in final settlement of the action brought by Martin Jacques, the author of the international best-seller ‘When China Rules the World’, and his 11 year-old son Ravi over the death of his wife, Harinder Veriah, in the Ruttonjee Hospital on January 2nd 2000. The settlement was approved by the High Court this morning.
The inquest in November 2000, at which Jacques reported that his wife, an Indian-Malaysian, had complained to him about being “bottom of the pile” in the hospital, acted as the catalyst for a major public campaign in support of anti-racist legislation which eventually culminated in the introduction of the first-ever such law in Hong Kong in July 2008.
American elite opinion has been, for the most part, dead wrong about China. The People’s Republic is not liberalizing and it is not aligning itself with the West to resolve the world’s most pressing problems
Back in February, Robert Samuelson, one of America’s top economic commentators, began his Washington Post column with a critique of China:
Samuelson is neither an alarmist nor a reflexive China basher. He is calling it like he sees it. And I think he is correct. American elite opinion has been, for the most part, dead wrong about China. The People’s Republic is not liberalizing and it is not aligning itself with the West to resolve the world’s most pressing problems. Its military build-up is destabilizing and, in many cases, it is not playing by the rules of international trade.