Martin Jacques

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  • No Chance Against China

    Google’s defeat foretells the day when Beijing rules the world

    The blunt truth is that most Western forecasters have been wrong about China for the past 30 years. They have claimed that Chinese economic growth was exaggerated, that a big crisis was imminent, that state controls would fade away, and that exposure to global media, notably the Internet, would steadily undermine the Communist Party’s authority. The reason why China forecasting has such a poor track record is that Westerners constantly invoke the model and experience of the West to explain China, and it is a false prophet. Until we start trying to understand China on its own terms, rather than as a Western-style nation in the making, we will continue to get it wrong.

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  • Will China Rule the World?

    CAMBRIDGE – Thirty years ago, China had a tiny footprint on the global economy and little influence outside its borders, save for a few countries with which it had close political and military relationships. Today, the country is a remarkable economic power: the world’s manufacturing workshop, its foremost financier, a leading investor across the globe from Africa to Latin America, and, increasingly, a major source of research and development.

    The Chinese government sits atop an astonishing level of foreign reserves – greater than $2 trillion. There is not a single business anywhere in the world that has not felt China’s impact, either as a low-cost supplier, or more threateningly, as a formidable competitor.

    China is still a poor country. Although average incomes have risen very rapidly in recent decades, they still stand at between one-seventh and one-eighth the levels in the United States – lower than in Turkey or Colombia and not much higher than in El Salvador or Egypt. While coastal China and its major metropolises evince tremendous wealth, large swaths of Western China remain mired in poverty. Nevertheless, China’s economy is projected to surpass that of the US in size sometime in the next two decades.

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  • Will China Rule the World?

    Americans and Europeans blithely assume that China will become more like them as its economy develops and its population gets richer. This is a mirage, Jacques says

    Thirty years ago, China had a tiny footprint on the global economy and little influence outside its borders, save for a few countries with which it had close political and military relationships. Today, the country is a remarkable economic power: the world’s manufacturing workshop, its foremost financier, a leading investor across the globe from Africa to Latin America, and, increasingly, a major source of research and development.

    The Chinese government sits atop an astonishing level of foreign reserves — greater than $2 trillion. There is not a single business anywhere in the world that has not felt China’s impact, either as a low-cost supplier, or more threateningly, as a formidable competitor.

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  • Business Books: Investment advice for 2010

    The credit crisis is just over a year old and already there are dozens of books on the market to explain its causes or cure its ills

    Most are not worth the time it takes to read them, according to a handful of money managers and market strategists who agreed to take part in an informal survey. The books either contain too few insights, they go over old ground, or they just get it wrong.

    — “Too many of the books about the crisis are fluffy,” said Yale professor and economist Robert Shiller, who was among the most vocal sages predicting the real estate bust. Of all the books he read last year, only a few were sufficiently serious. One was “This Time is Different,” a history of 800 years of financial schemes-gone-wrong written by University of Maryland economics professor Carmen Reinhart and Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff.

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  • Speech and ‘Harmony’ in China: An Experiment

    In his book ‘When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a new Global Order,’ Martin Jacques argues that China is not only ascendant economically. It is also on a path to marginalize the West and change global conceptions of what is modernity. Does this include modern communication?

    In mid-December I visited Wuhan, China, in Hubei Province where Wuhan University’s School of Journalism and Mass Media held a conference on Intercultural Communication and Journalism Ethics, attended by perhaps one hundred scholars mostly from China or greater China. I made a presentation there on the relevance of Habermas’s treatment of modernity for the analysis of Chinese culture. And then traveled to Chengdu, Sichuan Province, to deliver a lecture on comparative forms of political legitimacy and the role of communication in relation to each, at the Department of Literature and Journalism in Sichuan University.

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  • A new ecosystem of ties in East Asia

    The regional scenario of inter-state relations is the result of clear trends: the continuing rise of China, the diplomatic activism of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, and America’s current economic decline.

    The dawn of 2010 has brought with it expectations of a greater degree of economic cooperation among the politically diverse states of East Asia. In realpolitik terms, the dominant role of the United States — or as its critics say, its domineering presence in East Asia — may be just beginning to fade. Emerging already are political signs that a new ecosystem of inter-state ties is slowly evolving in the region.

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  • The Kids Will Be Alright

    The coming U.S. population boom will bring new economic vitality; the resurgence of Fargo

    America’s population growth makes it a notable outlier among the advanced industrialized countries. The country boasts a fertility rate 50% higher than that of Russia, Germany or Japan and well above that of China, Italy, Singapore, North Korea and virtually all of eastern Europe. Add to that the even greater impact of continued large-scale immigration to America from around the world. By the year 2050, the U.S. population will swell by roughly 100 million, and the country’s demographic vitality will drive its economic resilience in the coming decades.

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  • ‘The Life and Death of Democracy’ By John Keane

    John Keane’s book contains a wealth of interesting information on the past, writes Robert Rowthorne but it is of scant use to those seeking enlightenment about the future

    The subject matter of this long book is the history and future of democracy. Despite the word “death” in its title, the author is an optimist. Democracy may be changing but it is not in its death throes.

    This is a timely book. Democracy in Europe may be flagging, but on a global scale it is on the march. The recent election in the United States has revitalised American politics and the new president is seeking to unify a divided nation. In India, over 400 million people recently voted in an election which returned the reformist Manmohan Singh as prime minister for a second term. In the Middle East, there have been peaceful elections in Iraq, Kuwait and the Lebanon. In a good omen for future stability of Iraq, the party of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki performed well in the provincial elections, suggesting that he may win a second term in next year’s national elections. In Iran, the huge turn-out in the recent election indicated the degree of popular enthusiasm for democracy, but the outcome has been marred by fraud and violent repression on the streets. Despite this and other setbacks, 2009 has in general been a good year for democracy.

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  • Don’t give up on the U.S.

    Nearly 40% think China will become the world’s dominant power in the next 20 years, as indicated by a recent survey

    If the U.S. were a stock, it would be trading at historic lows. The budget deficit is out of control, the economy is anemic and the political system is controlled by academic ideologues and Chicago hacks. Opposing them is a force largely comprised of know-nothings–to call them Neanderthals would be too complimentary.

    Not surprisingly, many Americans have become pessimistic. Two in three adults now fear their children will be worse off than they are. Nearly 40% think China will become the world’s dominant power in the next 20 years, as indicated by a recent survey.

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  • Democracy

    Part I: “People’s Power” Usurped By Elites; Part II: Democracy and Theocracy — From Communalism to Occupation Subjugation

    One of the many words in the mantra of the imperial apologists is that of democracy. From its Greek roots meaning “people” and “power” the word has travelled a long and convoluted journey but needs to be questioned as to whether it has achieved the real ideal. For the people, the “demos” to truly have power requires a system that acts considerably differently from actions by the global elites currently in power.

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