Martin Jacques joins Middle East Eye to explore China’s identity as a civilisation-state, the century of humiliation, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Xinjiang question, the decline of American hegemony, Trump’s failing strategy against China, and why Jacques believes the future global order will be built around China and the Global South.
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Martin Jacques was the editor of Marxism Today 1977-1991. MT became famous for, amongst other things, its pathbreaking analysis of Thatcherism. As a result, the magazine gained an important following among Thatcherites. In March this year they established a new online journal Thatcherism Today, its name being a tribute to Marxism Today. Its founder and editor Tim Aker invited Martin Jacques to write the opening article for its launch edition. The article is below.
Keir Starmer’s visit to China is the first by a UK prime minister for eight years and marks a major shift in the UK’s attitude towards China
Hong Kong has a huge chance to renew itself: to become an integral part of the Great Bay Area, to establish a new kind of identity, and develop much closer ties with ASEAN and East Asia more widely.
The notion of civilization and civilizational inheritance, shared by China and the Global South, including India, will be one of the central tenets of international relations in a new global order.
Martin Jacques argues that the UN remains the most representative platform for global dialogue but must be reformed to reflect today’s realities. He warns that any retreat by the US by the UN would harm global cooperation. He welcomed China’s consistent support for UN agencies and multilateralism.
The World War II and the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression are an integral part of the same historical phenomenon. In the West they may be treated as separate entities, but they became inextricably intertwined as a part of the same global conflict against fascism, one based in Europe, the other in East Asia. We should think of both of them as part of the Second World War (1931-45). They resulted in a huge loss of life, both civilian and military, especially in China and the Soviet Union, but the world that emerged from it, with the benefit of hindsight, was vastly better than the world of the many decades that preceded it.
When the US administration seeks to redefine America’s relationship with the world, including Europe, the latter’s response has been one of damage limitation. It has desperately sought to persuade the US to continue supporting the war against Russia in Ukraine, while, in order to mollify Washington, the European members of NATO have unanimously agreed to increase their defence expenditure to 5 percent of GDP by 2035. The EU has failed to take any serious initiative on tariffs, despite having had over three months to do so. Meanwhile the US administration is once more on the warpath, threatening a tariff increase of 30 percent on August 1.
The first Trump administration signalled the birth of a powerful new movement in US politics, albeit one that was often incoherent and divided. With the second Trump administration, the MAGA movement has come of age, its project is now much clearer. It represents a fundamental rupture in US politics, and Western politics more generally. What are its key characteristics?
One of the defining characteristics of US foreign policy since the beginning of China’s reform and opening-up has been its consistent underestimation of China. It never entertained the idea that China could become America’s equal, let alone surpass it. In fact, we have already arrived at the latter scenario. It is this that persuaded the Trump administration that the only solution was to junk America’s post-1945 foreign policy. America was losing and would continue to lose: a radical change of direction was needed. The first attempt was Trump 1.0. When Donald Trump won last November, a very different and far more extreme strategy was in place. It climaxed on April 9 when the Trump administration effectively called a halt on trade with China. Read more >