Recent books dealing with China’s unprecedented development over the last 30 years and its future have an annoyingly-repetitive habit of starting out by yelling the big facts: the country’s GDP growth, urban migration, education levels – and normally a concern or two about corruption, reforms and opacity. While these are all important issues to address, it does make the majority of these titles blend into one singular snapshot of the country.
At least journalist Martin Jacques tries a different and more anthropological tact. When China Rules the World leaves it until page 73 before it seriously starts to look at China and its current position. Until that point the book concentrates on exploring previous models of industrial revolution: Britain’s in the 1750s, the United States’ soon after, and Japan’s rise in the 19th and early 20th century following its adoption of many Western institutions and attitudes.
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“When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go: downtown.” So warbled the British singer, Petula Clark in the 1960s. However, today if solitude is your constant companion, I would suggest that you purchase a copy of this riveting book and read it on the bus and in airports – as I have been doing in recent days, with the dramatic words on the bright red cover of this weighty tome blaring insistently – and no doubt you will find, as I have, that your reading reverie will be constantly interrupted by a stream of anxious interlopers curious to know what the future may hold.
For like Petula Clark, the author too hails from London, though the startling message he brings decidedly differs from her melancholy intervention. For it is the author’s conclusion that sooner rather than later, China – a nation ruled by a Communist Party – will have the most sizeable and powerful economy in the world and that this will have manifold economic, cultural, psychological (and racial) consequences. Strangely enough, Jacques – one of the better respected intellectuals in the North Atlantic community – does not dwell upon how this monumental turn of events occurred. To be sure, he pays obeisance to the leadership of Comrade Deng Xiaoping, who in 1978, opened China’s economy to massive inward foreign direct investment, which set the stage for the 21st Century emergence of the planet’s most populous nation. Read more >
The Chinese state has a competence that far exceeds that of Western states
There is a standard Western reflex to any discussion about China: it is not democratic. True, but that does not get us very far. Nor was any Western country during its economic take-off; nor was Japan; and nor were the Asian tigers. The great majority of countries have not been democratic during their period of take-off: the most obvious, and remarkable, exception is India. As for China, about half the population still lives in the countryside, meaning that its economic take-off – the shift from agriculture to industry, from the countryside to the cities – still has a long way to run.
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中國改革開放三十年，經濟上取得驕人成績。心存「恐慌」的西方國家每隔一段日子，就會拋出一套「中國威脅論」；權威的「神算子」更預測，中國經濟實力到2030年時會超越美國，成為世界中心。
有關「中國威脅論」的書籍，近年熱爆歐美書市。英國上月出版一書涉及類似的威脅論，書未寫完，已轟動全球。書中提到的中國威脅，非指經濟或軍事，而是文化威脅。
作者認為，中國將以文化統治世界。到時，周邊國家向中國朝貢；有更多人看中國電影和學習漢語。 文：余綺平 圖：網上圖片
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Come the next catastrophe, we will rue governments’ cowardice in failing to reform the banks
Talk of economic recovery is in the air. The FTSE has been steadily climbing over recent days. The banks are once more recruiting and paying fat bonuses. The sense of impending financial catastrophe which stalked the western world last autumn now seems a long time ago. But the mood of cautious optimism that is tangible in some circles is profoundly misplaced.
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This long and repetitive book is exactly about what it says on the cover. Unlike Martin Jacques I hesitate to say the same thing again and again, but his point is that the Chinese have a very long, tenacious, unified, and enduring culture that is overtaking the ‘West’ – he means the United States, a country of recent origin compared to the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilisation-state. Some time in the mid-term future the Chinese will be global masters.
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MARTIN JACQUES’S MAMMOTH study of the rise of China begins well enough, emphasising the country’s otherness while insisting that otherness does not have to mean alien. He is frank, too, about China’s unembarrassed racial and hierarchic view of the world. He is also right to dismiss demands for instant democracy as impracticable, though perhaps an innate anti-Americanism prevents him adding that they usually come from the people who smirk at US naivety in seeking to impose it on Iraq.
Very soon, however, his zealotry in cutting the West down to size becomes tiresome. The rise of China is to be welcomed, and there might be something in his thesis that for the first time since the rise of the nation-state (China, he argues is a civilisation-state) modernity will not be an exclusively western concept.
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The Uighur protests could strengthen the hand of China’s hardliners—at a cost to us all
After playing a constructive role at the London G20 summit in April, China gave $50bn to the IMF and dispatched ships to catch pirates off the Somali coast. Optimists will say that such good behaviour is a further sign of the long-term integration of China into the global economy and political system. They can point to 30 years of economic reform, the steady growth of personal freedom within China and even modest moves towards democracy, such as village elections in many provinces.
But recent events must give optimists pause for thought. On a visit to China in late June I was reminded that within the Chinese system there is a constant battle between liberals and authoritarians, and the hardliners have started to win more of the arguments. The violence in Xinjiang will only strengthen their hand. Most Chinese think that the government has been too soft on the Uighur rioters—and although China is not a democracy, public opinion (as revealed by comments on websites, at least) does influence policy. Even before the Uighur riots, last year’s protests in Tibet and the recent 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square had made China’s leaders wary of relaxing their authority. So had fears that the current economic crisis would lead to social instability.
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Without inner harmony, the world will see ‘Pax Sinica’ only as a symbol for an angry dragon rather than a gentle panda
It’s never easy to predict the future. There are so many variables that are beyond a man’s foresight. A “black swan” that is out of the norm can pop up anywhere, anytime. And yet, only a few people object to the forecast that the 21st century will be the era of China. Those who were buoyed by the neo-imperialistic fantasy of “Pax Americana” said the 21st century would be the era of the United States, but their voices were buried under the sandstorms of Iraq and the collapse of Wall Street. “Pax Sinica” is not a matter of supposition: It has become recognized as a matter of time.
Goldman Sachs’ 2007 forecast is often quoted in talks about the China’s economic future. According to the report, China will catch up with the United States’ gross domestic product by 2027 and become the world’s largest economy. By 2050, China’s GDP is expected to be two times larger than that of the United States.
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中国的崛起将改变的不仅仅是世界经济格局，还将彻底动摇我们的思维和生活方式
以前，谈论中国统治世界话题的书通常以“如果”开始。如今，开场白更多转向假设性的“当……时”。这就是我们所生活的时代。马丁·雅克关于中国崛起的著作长达550页，但对其飞速经济发展是否不可阻挡的问题却惜墨如金。该书几乎完全不理会有关对中央王国的另一种流行——且看似很合理的——假设：“当中国奇迹破灭时。”
雅克的书基于如下推断：到2050年，中国将成为世界最大经济体，超过美国和那时的第三大经济体印度。借助GDP“无情的手段”，中国将在政治和军事上成为全球最强大的国家。雅克认为，中国的崛起将推翻对何为现代的“西方式”看法。他说，有关全球化的想当然结论认为，其他国家现代化会打上西方烙印，“我们习惯于西方化甚至美国化的世界，不能想象若非如此世界将会怎样”。
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