Articles on ‘When China Rules the World’
Hongkongers aren’t protesting because of economic resentment toward mainland China.
As Hong Kong’s “Umbrella Revolution” continues, Martin Jacques and others commentators have tried to pin the underlying causes on purely – or primarily – economic factors. Although quality of life issues undeniably played a role in building up public discontent, the emerging narrative – which seeks to portray Hongkongers as ingrates resentful of Mainland China’s newfound economic success – is incomplete and misleading.
Hong Kong’s current system of governance has aptly been described as “the result of collusion between Hong Kong’s tycoons and Beijing’s Communists.” Half of Hong Kong’s legislature is made up of “functional constituencies” representing “special interests.” The end result of this is that the 1,200-strong Election Committee that currently chooses Hong Kong’s Chief Executive disproportionately favors corporate interests.
This skewed institutional framework is a major contributor to a whole host of quality-of-life issues. For example, the dispute over the high-speed rail public works project in 2010 – railroaded through the legislature despite significant public opposition – is a vivid illustration of the consequences of a political system in which business interests can run roughshod over other considerations. Successive chief executives, too, have been able to ignore quality-of-life issues affecting the general public precisely because they are accountable only to their “constituents” and not the general electorate.
昨天上午，中央纪委官网“国际反腐三人谈”首次邀请国外专家探讨反腐问题。伦敦政治经济学院亚洲研究中心客座研究员马丁·雅克、马达里亚加欧洲学院基金会执行主任皮埃尔·德福安和中国社会科学院中国廉政研究中心副秘书长高波共同为反腐献策。
皮埃尔·德福安坦言，“我对中国现在发生的事情感到非常吃惊。”他认为，严格的程序使“老虎苍蝇一起打”成效显著。“中国现在建立了与纳税人和公民联系的机制，为公众通过社交网络和网站进行举报提供机会，这对那些受到腐败诱惑的人能够发挥非常有效的震慑作用。我认为这种反腐败体制会帮助他们更接近目标。”
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World-renowned scholars on Wednesday expressed divided opinions on the way the Communist Party of China (CPC) is handling reforms in China at a dialogue held in Beijing.
The scholars, from various disciples, aired their views at the China’s Reforms: Particularities versus Commonalities session on the first day of The Party and the World Dialogue 2014.
The scholars, who came from all over the world, discussed the reform for almost half a day. Some suggested that the reforms are being correctly handled due to the wide participation of society. Others disagreed, saying that despite the achievements, the Party’s reforms are bound to fail due to a number of issues including the lack of a democratic political system and censorship. Some of the delegates suggested that China is role model for rapid development.
David Shambaugh, a professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University in the United States, outlined ten challenges that the CPC is facing in implementing and sustaining the reforms.
Britain must stop lecturing China over human rights and start learning about Chinese culture or risk being marginalised in the new world order, a leading authority on China has warned.
Speaking at an event in Yorkshire, the author and academic Martin Jacques questioned whether the declining West could “grasp the future” and engage with China, which earlier this year overtook the United States as the world’s largest economy in purchasing power parity.
The shift in global power will have a profound political, intellectual, cultural and moral impact on international affairs, added Mr Jacques.
Mr Jacques said: “Britain is still caught in an obsolescent mindset, where we are still living in a world we are accustomed to rather than a world that is coming into existence.
“This requires a dramatic change in the way in which we think of ourselves and we think of the rest of the world and our place in the world.
“The arguments over Britain’s relationship with the European Union are a sideshow because that’s arguing over the placement of the furniture, it is not arguing about the shape of the house.
“The shape of the house is going to change very profoundly.”
The author of best-selling book When China Rules The World was speaking at an event to commemorate the 10th anniversary of a partnership between Leeds Metropolitan University and the College of Management at Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China.
He explained to an audience of Yorkshire business leaders and academics how China, a nation of 1.3bn people, has been through a process of radical transformation since launching a programme of reforms in 1978.
China’s economy has grown at a rate of 10 per cent a year and by 2030 is forecast to be twice the size of the US economy and greater than the US and European economies put together, according to Mr Jacques.
He said Chinese people are very optimistic about their future prosperity, compared to those in the West who are displaying levels of pessimism not seen since the 1930s.
But as China becomes the dominant global player it is a mistake to think it will become more Western, argued Mr Jacques.
“This is own hubris, this is our own arrogance. China is different,” he said.
Instead, the West must work to understand China and its history and culture, he added.
Mr Jacques described China as a “civilisation state” with more than 2,000 years of history, which places great importance on unity, stability and order.
In contrast, the default mode of Europe is fragmentation into lots of nation states, he said. And just because past empires of the West were aggressive and expansionist, it does not follow that China will be the same; Mr Jacques said China has a “stay at home” sense of universalism. He added: “Their attitude is ‘we are the most developed part of the world, our culture and our civilisation is superior to all others so why would we want to step outside China into darkened shades of barbarity?’”
China will seek to exercise its power and influence, but through economic and cultural means rather military or political, he added. As a consequence, for Westerners the world will become increasingly less familiar.
“We have been very privileged. The furniture of the world has been our furniture, our creation. That’s not going to continue in the future,” he warned.
“The question is, can we adapt to this? This is going to be an enormous historical shock.”
In response, Britons should learn Mandarin and political leaders should stop lecturing their Chinese counterparts over human rights and learn about Chinese culture.
– Bernard Ginns
A LEADING authority on the rise of China will explain how he thinks the world will change in response to the new global superpower.
Martin Jacques, the author, broadcaster and speaker, is visiting Yorkshire next month to deliver a lecture at Leeds Metropolitan University.
The institution is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its partnership with the College of Management at Zhejiang University of Technology in Hangzhou, China, with a series of guest lectures.
Mr Jacques is the author of the global bestseller ‘When China Rules the World: the End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order’.
President B. S. Aquino III apparently thought he and US President Barack Obama would be playing China together. Obama said however that they’re not playing China right now, but that the US would defend the Philippines if attacked. This had some political pundits confused. What exactly did Obama mean?
“The US has no plan to contain China.” China is now the world’s largest trading nation, according to the latest statistics, and is outspending almost every other country on defense outside of the US. Many China-watchers seem to believe China will soon rule the world—one global bestseller by Martin Jacques is entitled, “When China Rules the World. ” But Obama did not come to Asia to embrace that position.
He obviously has a soft spot for B. S. III. But he has seen how unmusical the guy is on any serious question. Even when the guy appears headed in the right direction, he self-destructs as soon as he “vocalizes” his position. Obama could not afford to let this loose cannon, this Philippine version of Kim Jong-un, mess up things for Washington. He had to restrain his poodle. It is within this context that one must read Obama’s statement.
Will China Dominate The 21st Century?
by Jonathan Fenby
(Polity Press, £9.99)
BEN CHACKO reviews Jonathan Fenby’s latest analysis of China’s chances
JONATHAN FENBY is one of Britain’s more knowledgeable China-watchers and his latest work on the subject deserves attention.
The book, however, ought really to take the title of its final chapter — Why China Will Not Dominate the 21st Century.
It reads rather like a refutation of Martin Jacques’s When China Rules the World, mirroring the latter even to the extent that both contain a section quoting attitude surveys “proving” that positive or negative views of China are the norm worldwide.
In this it is quite effective. Fenby relentlessly highlights China’s weaknesses, and in many respects he is right — right that China is nowhere near displacing the US as a global superpower, right that there is scant evidence that it wants to, right that it faces serious economic, political and environmental challenges which will keep its politicians’ focus firmly on their own country and not on attempts to become a world leader.
For some time now, it has been fashionable to say that we have begun what will be a “Pacific Century.” We have seen a flood of books of late, variations on the theme of When China Rules the World, as one put it. Certainly, in the aftermath of the 2008-09 financial crisis and Great Recession, this has been the conventional wisdom, a view shaped to a large extent by linear thinking. One of the most celebrated proponents of such views is the prolific former Singapore diplomat Kishore Mahbubani, who has written a series of well received books on Asia’s rise such as The New Asian Hemisphere.
In a recent article, Mahbubani has taken this linear logic to new heights (or depths, depending on your perspective) with the premise that America’s slide to number two economic status is “inevitable by 2019.” His premise appears to be that the prospect of yielding the top spot to China appears horrible and unnatural in the collective U.S. psyche:
In 2019, barely five years away, the world will pass one of its most significant historical milestones. For the first time in 200 years, a non-western power, China, will become the number-one economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms… it will take longer for China’s economy to overtake America’s in nominal terms but the trend line is irresistible.