The West has gotten it wrong on China for decades – even as it embraces a market economy, it has shunned Western-style freedoms. And its power is only growing
The dynamics of President Obama’s trip to China were markedly different from those evident on visits made by President Clinton and President George W. Bush. This time the Chinese made clear that they were unwilling even to discuss issues such as human rights or free speech. Why? The relationship between the countries has changed: America feels weak and China strong in their bilateral ties. This is not a temporary shift that will reverse itself once the U.S. has escaped from its mountain of debt. Rather, it is the expression of a deep and progressive shift in the balance of power between the two nations, one that is giving the Chinese — though studiously cautious in their approach — a rising sense of self-confidence.
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The president’s visit to China was seen as failure, but what if that was just the new standard? Martin Jacques on why the U.S. must get used to decline—and learn humility
Obama’s visit to China last week was starkly different from previous such occasions. The United States has stumbled into a new era. Just a decade ago it all looked so different. President Bush—in one of history’s great miscalculations—believed that the world stood on the verge of a new American century. In fact, the opposite was the case. The defeat of the Soviet Union flattered only to deceive and mislead. In a world increasingly defined by the rise of the developing countries, most notably China, the United States was, in fact, in relative decline. It took the global financial crisis to begin to convince the U.S. that it could no longer take its global supremacy for granted. This dawning realisation has come desperately late in the day. Even now most of the country remains in denial. Never has a great power been less prepared or equipped to face its own decline.
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History will judge New Labour harshly. Unlike the 1945 government, it lacked a reforming vision – but the financial crisis provides an unprecedented chance for renewal
We can already see New Labour in some kind of historical perspective; and the judgement of history will not be kind. At the next election the voters will consign it to opposition and probably desert it in huge numbers, possibly on the scale of the Conservative defeat of 1997. Of course, in our electoral system, even a government that lasts three terms eventually returns to the opposition benches: there is not necessarily any ignominy in that. It depends on its legacy. I vividly recall a discussion at a seminar in 1998, organised as part of the preparation for a special issue of Marxism Today on New Labour. Most of the participants were to varying degrees inimical to New Labour and sceptical about its agenda. The few who were supportive argued that the key task was to secure two or more terms.
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Although a historic victory for Japan’s Democratic party, Sunday’s election result will mean little in practice
Measured by the yardstick of Japanese politics since 1955, the result of Sunday’s general election is extraordinary. Only once since 1955 have the ruling Liberal Democrats been ousted from office and that was in 1993, when an eight-party coalition took office for a brief and highly unstable period of rule; and even then the Liberal Democrats remained the largest single party. This is quite different. The Democratic party now enjoys a big majority and the Liberal Democrats have suffered a huge electoral defeat.
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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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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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Afghanistan has proved the deathbed of every imperial project that has sought to tame it. Sooner or later, the British will leave in defeat
There is one certainty concerning the British and western military presence in Afghanistan: it will fail. Only when is in doubt. It may yet stumble on for a few more years, but sooner or later there will be a general recognition that the mission cannot succeed.
This is one of the stranger military escapades of the past few decades. Without the attacks of 11 September 2001, the invasion of Afghanistan would never have happened. The United States needed to find a military outlet for its anger and desire for revenge and Afghanistan was the chosen target; the objectives were to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and destroy al-Qaeda. This was the (always absurd and overblown) “war on terror”. The first objective has never been achieved, the second remains as elusive as ever, and meanwhile the Nato troops have become embroiled in a war without end against the Taliban.
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A powerful sense of Han identity pervades China – any respect for Uighur difference would break with centuries of attitudes
The acute ethnic tensions between Han Chinese and Uighurs revealed by the violent clashes in Xinjiang province last weekend, coming as they do only a year after similar clashes between Han Chinese and Tibetans, suggest that the government’s present approach in these two regions is singularly failing to achieve its goal of integrating the Uighurs and the Tibetans. There is clearly deep resentment by both groups towards what they perceive as discrimination against their culture and religion, together with the growing tide of Han Chinese migrants who are turning them into a minority in their homelands and who are seen as the major beneficiaries of the rapid economic growth that both regions have been experiencing.
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Washington must cut the umbilical cords that ties it to Tel Aviv. If it doesn’t, the conflict in the Middle East will hasten American decline
Could the Middle East prove to be the United States’ Dien Bien Phu? The latter, you may remember, was where the flower of France’s colonial troops was vanquished by the Viet Minh in 1954. That military defeat in Vietnam came to symbolise the end of France as an imperial power. I exaggerate, of course: apart from Iraq, American troops are not embroiled in the Middle East and there is no great battle vaguely on the horizon. Dien Bien Phu is no more than a metaphor for the problems that can befall an imperial power in decline. The region where a similar process of angst and exhaustion might most obviously face the US today is the Middle East. Washington has long regarded it to be the most important region as far as US interests are concerned.
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The rise of the East will change more than just economics. It will shake up the whole way that we think and live our lives
The world is being remade but the West is only very slowly waking up to this new reality. In 2027 Goldman Sachs estimates that the size of the Chinese economy will overtake America’s and by 2050 will be twice as big.
But we still think of the rise of the developing countries and the relative decline of the developed nations in almost exclusively economic terms. China’s rise is seen as having momentous economic implications but being of little political and cultural consequence. This is a profound mistake.
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