Our myopic model of modernity means we have yet to grasp not just that the future will be Chinese but how very Chinese it will be
There is a growing recognition that China’s economic rise will change the world. But that change is still seen in narrowly economic terms. There is an assumption that the political and cultural effects of China’s rise will not be that great. This is profoundly wrong. The political and cultural impact will be at least as great as the economic.
There is always a time-lag in these matters but, as Paul Kennedy argues in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, economic ascendancy is a pre-condition for broader political and cultural influence. I suspect the reason for this tunnel vision is western hubris: a belief that our modernity is the only conceivable one, that our political and cultural arrangements will ultimately be adopted by everyone else. This is an extremely provincial mentality. Modernity is not simply a product of the market and technology, but is shaped by history and culture.
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The country’s trajectory and the change in its people’s values and aspirations are cause for heated debate. Two experts go head to head
Dear Will
It is now widely recognised that the balance of economic power is shifting from the rich world to the developing world. Indeed, the role accorded to the G20 rather than the G8 in seeking to tackle the financial crisis is a vivid illustration of this. But what is not recognised – and has been barely discussed – are the political and cultural ramifications of the rise of the developing countries. That, I suspect, is because there is a deeply held western view that they will – and should – end up as clones of western modernity: in other words, there is only one modernity and it is western. This is a fallacy. Modernity is a product of culture and history as much as markets and technology. The central question here is China: will it end up like us or will it be something very different and, as a result, change the world in very fundamental ways?
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As an emboldened China sees, the American dollar is gravely wounded. And the days of US political supremacy are numbered
We have entered one of those rare historical periods that is characterised by a shift in global hegemony from one great power to another. The last such was between 1931 and 1945, and marked the end of Britain’s financial ascendancy and its replacement by that of the United States. It might be argued that the cold war represented a similar period, but that is a fallacy: the cold war was an ideological struggle between two powers that were always hopelessly ill-matched. This new period is marked by the rise of China and the decline of the US. Arguably the process started around a decade ago, but at that stage it was barely noticed, such was the west’s preoccupation with 9/11 and its after-effects. Indeed, the Bush administration was thinking in exactly the opposite terms: that the world was entering a golden age of American global power.
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US economic power is crumbling, but China is not yet ready to take over the reins
The G20 meeting on 2 April will deliver little but, like the first G20 meeting in Washington last November, its symbolism will be enormous. The very fact that it is taking place at all is an admission of the momentous shift in the global balance of economic power from the rich countries to the developing world.
If the western countries plus Japan could have sorted out this crisis through the G8, that would certainly have been their preferred route. The cosiness of eight nations (or preferably seven, excluding Russia) with rather similar interests would have made agreement rather easier and, more importantly, would not have implied that in future power would have to be shared with countries possessed of very different interests and histories.
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Salvation does not lie in demagogic attacks. Beijing must be treated as an equal – or another Great Depression beckons
The key relationship for any global recovery is between the US and China. By the same token, any serious deterioration in their relationship would propel the world towards a second Great Depression. The Chinese citizen has funded the credit-driven American consumer boom: or, to put it another way, China’s government has enabled the US to run an enormous current account deficit by buying huge quantities of US treasury bills. If China stops this, the value of the US dollar would plunge, and a bitter trade war, engulfing the rest of the world, would ensue.
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As relations warm with both Taiwan and Japan, China is resuming its centuries-old position as the linchpin of east Asia
Observers have long agreed that the two most difficult foreign policy questions that confronted the Chinese leadership were relations with Taiwan and with Japan. The last few years have seen both deteriorate markedly. The election of the nationalist Chen Shui-bian as president in 2000 and his re-election in 2004 was a nadir in the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland. The premiership of Junichiro Koizumi heralded a serious deterioration in Sino-Japanese relations, with Koizumi’s insistence on an annual visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in his official capacity. Such was the growing antagonism between the two nations that in 2005 there was a wave of anti-Japanese demonstrations in major Chinese cities. This year, however, there has been an extraordinary turnaround in China’s relations with both Taiwan and Japan which has exceeded all but the most optimistic expectations.
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Poverty once drove their mass emigration, but the overseas Chinese now revel in the status and wealth of their homeland
Already 2008 has proved a tumultuous year in terms of global perceptions of China, and there are still 59 days to go until the Beijing Olympics. The tragedy of the Sichuan earthquake followed hard on the heels of the riots in Tibet and the demonstrations surrounding the Olympic torch relay. Sympathy and compassion, combined with admiration for the rescue efforts of the Chinese government, served to soften the harsh memory of the riots in Lhasa and the blue-tracksuited Chinese officials. The world is having a crash course on China.
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To judge by the preoccupations of western, and especially American, politics, the defining event of this decade was, without a shadow of doubt, 9/11. Which only goes to show how leaders and societies alike can fail to see the wood for the trees. 9/11 was a hugely overblown event that only assumed its overarching importance a) because it was done to the United States and b) because of the way the US reacted.
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Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, is promoting military intervention in Burma. This is dangerous imperialist idiocy
We seem to be living in a time-warp. The mentality that has informed British and western attitudes towards the humanitarian crisis in Burma rests on the belief that we are the only ones that can really help. I suggest that David Miliband, our foreign secretary, whose elevation to the Foreign Office seems to have been conducted in such a seamless fashion that he is still singing exactly the same old tunes of his former prime minister, should take a crash course in “the modern realities of East Asia”. In an interview with Radio 4’s World Tonight, he managed to speak about the crisis in Burma (more of that name anon) without, as far as I could hear, a single mention of cooperation with Asian powers. What age does he live in?
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This is supposed to be China’s year – and by travelling to Japan, its president is showing fresh willingness to tackle one of its most difficult relationships
This was supposed to be the year when China saw its extraordinary economic rise crowned by the global recognition that it has long craved – and long been denied – by a hugely competent and successful staging of the Olympic games. If one thinks of all the exhibitions, television programmes and column inches that have been devoted to every aspect of Chinese society in this country over the course of the year as a microcosm of what is happening globally, China’s hopes have not been dashed.
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