There is virtually zero knowledge or understanding of the Chinese Communist Party in the West. It is seen as a clone of the Soviet Communist Party. In reality it is entirely different. It has been extraordinarily successful, not just transforming China but is also in the process of changing the world. Everyone needs to know about CPC and understand the reasons that lie behind its extraordinary success.
When will China replace the US as global leader? How do we assess the impact of China’s rise compared with that of previous hegemons? Why is the West so ignorant about China? What is the meaning of China as a civilization-state? How to understand the question of ethnicity in China? These are some of the issues discussed by Martin Jacques in this fascinating interview with Aaron Bastani from Novara. For the first time on video, Jacques discusses recent events in Xinjiang. And he argues that, contrary to the Western belief that China is incapable of change, history suggests the opposite, that more than any other culture, China has been extraordinarily adept at reinventing itself multiple times over the course of two millennia.
2020 was an historic year. It was dominated, of course, by the pandemic. And the extraordinary disparity between the Chinese and Western responses. While China largely succeeded in eliminating the virus, the West failed miserably. It was the greatest test of governance since the Second World War and China passed with flying colours. As a result, China was the only major economy to grow in 2020, with all the other major economies contracting. The disparity between the Western and Chinese performances will shape not only 2021 but the rest of the decade. The prospects for the West look bleak: indebtedness, introversion, instability and riven with conflict. Special People’s Daily 2020 video.
Much of Europe is once more in virtual lockdown. In the United States, Covid-19 continues to spread unabated. The situation in the West is now as bad as at any time since it all began. With the honourable exception of New Zealand, the West has singularly failed to quell, let alone eliminate, the virus. Why has the West failed so miserably? Interview with Liu Xin.
The pandemic will wrought huge changes in the world, much greater than the 2008 financial crisis. The fact that China has handled the pandemic far more successfully and competently than the United States, and the West more generally, will have far-reaching consequences. Without a vaccine it is clear that Western societies will fail to eliminate covid-19. The 2008 Western financial crisis led to Trump. The pandemic will change the world in ways that we don’t yet understand and cannot predict. The 2020s threaten to be a period of great turmoil, volatility and unpredictability. One thing is for sure: the pandemic will accelerate China’s rise and the US’s decline. This was an online talk given to the Understanding China Conference in Guangzhou 20-22 November 2020.
It is impossible to understand China unless you understand Chinese Civilization. China is a product of it civilizational background. There are many Civilizations and they are crucial to understanding the world. How can we make sense of the Muslim world, or India, or Iran, or Russia, or Africa without understanding the Civilizations that inform and shape them. Yet the West is silent on Civilizations, even for the most part about its own. This provides a powerful clue to how the West sees the world and how it is struggling with the differences in its own midst. This was an online talk given to the Understanding China Conference in Guangzhou 20-22 November 2020.
There is no point in believing we can make sense of China by a skin-deep knowledge of present-day China. We will be little the wiser. Chinese civilization is over 4,000 years old: as a political entity it is over 2,000 years old, the longest continuously existing polity in the world. Chinese history and culture is fundamentally different from that of the West: it always has been and always will be. So best to dispense with our Western-tinted spectacles and open our minds to arguably the world’s most successful civilization. China has been the most advanced country not just once but at least four times; and we are on the verge of this becoming five. A country, a culture and a people with the most extraordinary history that is fast becoming the magnet of the future.
We have entered a New Cold War. The US is attacking on China on many fronts. It cannot accept China’s rise. Like all hegemons, it cannot imagine a world in which it is no longer dominant. But in reality the US is in rapid relative decline. Its dominance has become an anachronism. The fact is that an international system led by China and the developing world will be much superior to one characterised by Western dominance, with the US and Europe accounting for less than 15% of the world’s population.
Lawrence Summers, former US Treasury Secretary, was interviewed by The Point on how he saw the present state of US-China relations. In this interview, Martin Jacques responds to Summers’s points. Moderated by Liu Xin.
Last year was a year to forget for Hong Kong. For months there was serious unrest and rioting. China is now introducing national security legislation. Will this restore stability? And if it does, will it work? How do the Chinese win the hearts and minds of the Hong Kong population? The attitudes of Hong Kong’s population can only be understood in terms of over 150 years of British colonialism. Part of the problem is that the people are experiencing a profound crisis of identity. Interview with Fu Xiaotian.
