The latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine carries an article on the inevitability of China becoming the next superpower, one of a mounting cascade of articles on America’s decline and China’s rise. For many Chinese, it is high time for their country to regain its rightful place in the world, after a century and a half of humiliation, beginning with the Opium War of 1839-1842 and culminating with the invasion and occupation of much of China by Japan 100 years later.
As Martin Jacques explains in his bestselling “When China Rules the World:” “China had already begun to acquire its modern shape in the centuries leading up to the birth of Christ” and, a millennium ago, it was “the greatest maritime nation in the world.”
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The United States and the People’s Republic of China are locked in a quiet but increasingly intense struggle for power and influence, not only in Asia, but around the world.
And in spite of what many earnest and well-intentioned commentators seem to believe, the nascent Sino-American rivalry is not merely the result of misperceptions or mistaken policies; it is driven instead by forces that are deeply rooted in the shifting structure of the international system and in the very different domestic political regimes of the two Pacific powers.
Throughout history, relations between dominant and rising states have been uneasy—and often violent. Established powers tend to regard themselves as the defenders of an international order that they helped to create and from which they continue to benefit; rising powers feel constrained, even cheated, by the status quo and struggle against it to take what they think is rightfully theirs. Indeed, this story line, with its Shakespearean overtones of youth and age, vigor and decline, is among the oldest in recorded history. As far back as the fifth century BC the great Greek historian Thucydides began his study of the Peloponnesian War with the deceptively simple observation that the war’s deepest, truest cause was “the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.”
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Throughout history, every great transformation in Chinese society has been ushered in by ideological change.
Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched reform and opening-up in 1978, China has abandoned Mao Zedong’s revolutionary model of social development and adopted the so-called “Beijing consensus” or “China model” to serve its great transformation.
After three decades of change from an agrarian to an industrial society, China has now become the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing economy. It is 10 times bigger than it was in 1978 and the nation has experienced the same degree of industrialization and social transformation as Europe did over two centuries. [1]
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Unlike many others, Economist George Magnus is not optimistic about China’s outlook.
George Magnus has the distinction – unlike many economic commentators – of being right, at least once.
Like Nouriel Roubini of “Dr Doom” fame, the 62-year-old senior economic adviser at Swiss bank UBS predicted the financial crisis.
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The 90-year-old emperor of the 21st century will have to choose between the prosperity of Asia or discord and tension in the region.
The red wave that blanketed all of China is subsiding. Nationwide celebrations for the 90th birthday of the Communist Party of China concluded with a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on July 1.
In the 90 years since the Communist Party seized control of China, the country has become the second-largest economy in the world. The decisions that the Communist Party of China makes now determine the fate of the world. That is why it is important for us to ask: “What is the Communist Party of China?” and “What does it mean to the country and the rest of the world?”
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As the Communist Party of China celebrates its 90th anniversary, David Bartram explains how it has navigated political and economic twists and turns to reach its dominant position today.
Ninety years after its formation in a small building in Shanghai’s French concession, the Communist Party of China (CPC) presides over the world’s second largest economy and a country that will arguably have a greater impact on the 21st century than any other.
Only 13 delegates attended the first congress in Shanghai in July 1921; today the CPC is the world’s largest political party with around 80 million members. It is a transformation that few foresaw, only made possible by the CPC’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
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Few would have dared to predict the remarkable economic transformation China has undergone in the 30 or so years since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms opened the country to the world in 1978.
That the Communist Party of China (CPC) not only survived the process, but thrived as the driving force behind market reforms that turned a country reeling in the aftermath of the “cultural revolution” (1966-76) into the second largest economy in the world is a remarkable feat of adaptability.
Martin Jacques, British academic and author of When China Rules the World, appreciates more than most the impact China’s economic miracle has had – and is still having – on the world.
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China’s economic success has now become so clear that its relation to China’s overall position in the world has become a major topic of international discussion.
For example, the regular column of the Financial Times chief foreign affairs commentator, Gideon Rachman, was recently entitled rather sensationally “When China becomes No 1”. The recent announcement by United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates that the US would increase its military commitment in East Asia, simultaneously with running down its presence in other areas, was interpreted as “countering” China.
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The incongruous arguments held up by both proponents and opponents of the Western Model’s application have ignored the sequence of development in China.
Two years ago, a British author, Martin Jacques, published a book titled, “When China Rules the World,” which galvanized many to reconsider their notions of China’s strategic development. However, Chinese professor Zhang Weiwei’s recent best-seller, “China Shock” has not created the same shock and intrigue. China’s rise is an indisputable fact. Professor Zhang’s most important contribution in this work is his comprehensive overview of the China Model.
Raising the theme of “rejecting Western influence” to a new pitch, the book’s tone is optimistic. His ideas are part of a larger cavalcade of commentators in recent years, which have warned against the lure of the Western Model. But in all of this, the question of audience is worth asking: Who actually cares so much about the Western model?
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China’s rapid growth since reform and opening-up in 1978 has drawn worldwide attention, yet predictions about the country’s future vary greatly
While some observers predicted that China would follow the former Soviet Union’s path in five years, optimists have spoken louder and clearer.
In his recent work,China’s Megatrends: the Eight Pillars of a New Society, well-known US futurist John Naisbit predicted that the country would evolve into the world’s center by 2050 and challenge Western democracy with its development mode. British scholar Martin Jacques has gone a step further in his book When China Rules the World. He declares the inevitability of China’s ascendancy and the West’s simultaneous decline, thus announcing a nascent superpower in the making.
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