MARTIN Jacques, author of the bestseller “When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order,” was in Manila recently for a half-day lecture at the Hotel InterContinental Manila.
I know this personally, because I was his chaperone during his six-day stay, made possible through the very generous support of Senator Alan Peter Cayetano. The lecture was a joint project of PILIPINAS 2020 (of which Senator Cayetano is a member) and the Center for Philippine Futuristics Studies and Management. National Book Store and the Philippine Star were sponsors, and Lyceum of the Philippines was also very supportive, with about 100 students acting as ushers and usherettes for the seminar.
Martin’s arrival – and the message he brought – may not have stirred a hornet’s nest, but surely came close to doing so and definitely caused a lot of those who heard him to take a second look at things. And by “things” I mean our foreign policy attitudes, specifically towards the United States of America and the Peoples’ Republic of China.
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Academician and former journalist Martin Jacques said in a lecture at the Hotel Intercon last Monday that the world will be less and less westernized and, instead, will be more influenced by China in the coming years.
Jacques is actually pursuing his main thesis in his best-selling book When China Rules the World that Chinese global hegemony is likely to grow over the next half-century.
Very few will contest Jacques’ prediction. It’s very evident that China’s economic growth has accelerated with the deepening of the West’s financial crisis, which is expected to last at least 10 more years. However, most Filipinos are admittedly among the very few that would not fall under Chinese influence. In this part of the globe, it’s the United States that continues to hold sway politically and culturally, the increasing aid from and bilateral trade with China notwithstanding.
Sen. Edgardo J. Angara, the longest-serving senator today, once said the Philippines should study China’s policies which have contributed to its economy’s resilience and growth during the current global financial crisis.
”We should look to China as our model and partner in energizing the countryside and empowering the rural areas. Developing the countryside and opening it up to foreign investments is an important step in boosting our national economy,” he said.
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President Benigno Aquino III on Monday night maintained that the United States should have a role in maintaining peace and stability in the disputed West Philippine Sea as it has interests there.
Although he said he is aware that the U.S. does not take sides in the disputes, Aquino said Washington has “a strategic stake in the freedom of navigation, unimpeded commerce, and the maintenance of peace and stability in the South China Sea.”
He said the Southeast Asian region is very diverse and its harmony can easily be disrupted by sheer political, military or economic might.
“Imbalance, as we know, may lead to instability,” said Aquino, who was in Cambodia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit.
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Both China and the Philippines have mishandled their dispute over Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal in the West Philippine Sea, a leading British scholar said Monday, noting Beijing’s obstinacy about its sovereignty claims and Manila’s ill-advised decision to send a naval vessel to confront Chinese fishing boats last April.
This developed as the Philippines vowed to keep speaking out on the global stage about its territorial row with China, as an effort by Southeast Asian nations to forge a united stance at the ASEAN Summit in Cambodia crumbled.
In a television interview Monday, Martin Jacques, author of the best-selling book “When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order,” said China could have opted for “joint development” with the other claimants of the resource-rich Spratlys region instead of asserting its sovereignty over it.
The ensuing cordon by Chinese ships around Panatag Shoal after a war of words with the Philippines raised the specter that the title of Jacques book was a fast-approaching reality.
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MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines must realize American decline in Asia and should mend its ties with China if it has any hope of resolving territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a British academic and journalist said on Monday, November 19.
“It doesn’t serve the Philippines well to think, well maybe the Americans will give us some support,” renowned scholar and China expert Martin Jacques explained during a lecture sponsored by The Center for Philippine Futuristics Studies.
Jacques, author of bestseller When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order, stressed that Manila should not expect results from a policy of assisting Washington in its so-called re-pivot towards Asia in exchange for help on the South China Sea.
“It’s a short-sighted game, because the wind is not blowing in this direction. The wind is blowing somewhere else,” he said in reference to China’s growing influence compared to America’s decline in the region.
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MANILA, Philippines – British economist, Cambridge University graduate and scholar Dr. Martin Jacques, author of the global bestselling book “When China Rules the World” and speaker at a lecture on Nov. 19 Monday 12:30 p.m. at Hotel Intercontinental in Makati City, said the United States needs to adjust to a new world order with a resurgent China becoming an equal and no longer a subordinate. He said the Philippines should “positively engage and benefit from the rise of China.”
When asked to comment on the South China Sea disagreements, Dr. Jacques urges Philippine government leaders “to de-escalate the territorial dispute with China” and follow the example of Malaysia which also has Spratley Islands disputes with China but both countries enjoy “good diplomatic and economic relations.”
Dr. Martin Jacques is a columnist for Britain’s The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian and New Statesman. He is visiting fellow at London School of Economics Asia Research Center, visiting professor at Japan’s Aichi University, at China’s Renmin University and a visiting fellow at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore (NUS).
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China is unique among the world’s most populous nations in that it considers itself ethnically near-homogenous, Martin Jacques writes in an essay at the BBC News Magazine. “[M]ore than nine out of 10 Chinese people think of themselves as belonging to just one race, the Han,” he says. But it wasn’t always so. As Jacques explains, the history of ethnicity in China is far more complicated than this suggests, with lessons for both how that makes China unique and what it means for the country today.
The history of China, he suggests, is in some ways a story about ethnicity.
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I DROPPED by Diliman a few days ago to leave a copy of the book “When China Rules the World” for political science professor Dr. Clarita Carlos. She had kindly accepted my invitation to be one of the four-member Panel of Reactors to the lecture of the same title by Martin Jacques, author of the book, which will be held at the Hotel InterContinental on November 19.
(If you happen to be interested in understanding China more, and in the process understanding better how we as a country should deal with the Peoples’ Republic, then I hope you’ll find time to attend. There is a minimal lecture fee, and to get more details contact Pilipinas 2020 through the email pilipinas2020@ymail.com.)
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Norwegian historian says China must develop closer, stronger relations with its neighbors
Odd Arne Westad insists those who claim China has been inward-looking for much of its recent history are making a serious error.
The Norwegian historian believes it is a major fallacy that often leads to a completely false view of the former Middle Kingdom.
“Anyone in East Asia in the mid-18th century who said the Qing Empire (1644-1911) was particularly inward-looking would have been sent off to have their heads examined,” he says.
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BEIJING // Did the coming out party for China’s first aircraft carrier symbolise the rise of the world’s next superpower?
It depends. Like the country, the answer is complicated.
After two decades of nearly constant double-digit increases in military budgets that have seen the country invest in a dizzying array of hardware, from new submarines to latest-generation cruise and ballistic missiles,China now spends more on defence than any nation except the United States.
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