I was unaware when I was planning my trip to China, starting today, that the timing would be quite so good
The past week has provided a decent statistical insight into the health of the world’s second biggest economy and I’m looking forward to seeing how the numbers compare with the reality on the ground. What is happening in China is particularly important right now because an apparent moderation in the US recovery and renewed sovereign debt worries in Europe have put the onus back on China to keep the show on the road. Whether its landing is soft or hard matters more than ever.
In the run-up to last week’s announcements, that debate had been unusually lively, fuelled by two conflicting indicators, one from the Chinese government and one from HSBC. The government’s purchasing managers index surged in March to a level indicating robust growth while the bank’s own measure fell to a level indicating a slowdown. Chinese manufacturing is either growing at its fastest rate in a year or contracting at an increasing rate.
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EU-China relations have been tested recently, not least with regards to a controversial EU carbon tax on airlines flying through European airspace. The tax has been resisted by China and others (including India), who argue that the EU has exceeded its jurisdiction by applying the full tax on flights that are only partly in its airspace. For its part, EU leaders are frustrated with the slow progress being made internationally in terms of cutting aviation greenhouse emissions. Analysts warn that, if the EU does not back down, there is a risk of a trade war developing as China retaliates (see, for example, the recent suspension of orders for new European-manufactured airplanes by China). If, as many predict, China’s rise heralds a new multipolar world order, do European policy-makers and citizens understand this new reality?
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Certain arrogant Westerners continue to ignore China’s rise and make negative predictions about China. Martin Jacques, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, wrote in an article recently published on the U.K.-based Observer newspaper. Based on abundant and accurate data, Jacques concluded that the Chinese economy still enjoys bright prospects.
China’s share of world economic output has risen from 2 percent to 10 percent over the past 30 years since the reform and opening-up, and the country has become the world’s second largest economy. The country’s annual foreign trade volume has surged from 500 billion U.S. dollars to 3.6 trillion U.S. dollars in merely 10 years since its accession to the World Trade Organization. As the world’s largest exporter, China has 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars of overseas assets and 18,000 enterprises abroad.
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Martin Jacques’s thesis – that China will become the dominant global power within decades, and it won’t become more westernised but will make the rest of the world more Chinese – is hard to dispute, and if one felt like disputing it one would soon be discouraged by the weight of evidence in the form of statistics, graphs, surveys and analysis Jacques brings to bear.
Reading this made me aware of my ignorance – I didn’t know the Chinese invented steam power before James Watt. At times I could wish the explanations crisper – Jacques repeatedly says that China is a “civilisation-state”, not a nation-state, and I would love to have the difference neatly explicated. But Jacques’s erudition is impressive – and persuasive.
– Brandon Robshaw
The expanded paperback edition of Jacques’ highly sympathetic assessment of China clearly places this “civilization state” (as opposed to nation state) in the context of east Asian economic history.
Jacques’ central thesis is that, although China was late to industrialise and is still developing, its exponential economic growth is supported by two millennia of broad political unity.
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My work email address attracts a lot of spam. Aside from the usual wire transfer requests, offers of performance enhancers and other comic smuttery that sneaks through the filters, there’s a fair amount of unsolicited sales pitches for professional services.
Recently, one of the latter surprised me. Rather than the usual scanning and accounting services from Bombay or Chennai, this was different. It was offering ‘advanced editorial services’. Pretty much exactly what I do, except not in that expensive first world place, London.
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When China Rules the World: Martin Jacques explains to Heather Farmbrough why it is very much a case of when rather than if
As a Fellow at the LSE and visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing and a former deputy editor of Marxism Today and The Independent, Martin Jacques’ career has hardly been short of achievements. Yet it is hard to read his best-selling bookWhen China Rules the World and escape the feeling that this is the work of a lifetime.
Penguin has just launched a second edition, a monumental work at 636 pages with a new afterword and substantial revisions because so much has changed since the first edition, particularly since the global financial crisis.
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This article examines how recent books by academics and public intellectuals are reshaping the discourse of the rise of China. While earlier trends argued that China was being socialized into the norms of international society, many texts now proclaim that due to its unique civilization, China will follow its own path to modernity. Such books thus look to the past—China’s imperial history—for clues to not only China’s future, but also the world’s future. This discourse, which could be called “Sino-speak,” presents an essentialized Chinese civilization that is culturally determined to rule Asia, if not the world. The article notes that nuanced readings of China’s historical relations with its East Asian neighbors provide a critical entry into a more sophisticated analysis of popular declarations of “Chinese exceptionalism.” But it concludes that this critical analysis is largely overwhelmed by the wave of Sino-speak.
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In both Turkey and China, the political and normative value given to economic development and transformation is greater than, and takes priority over, democracy
Nihat Berker, the president of Sabancı University, does great service to community by hosting engaging book discussions on campus. These remarkable gatherings offer a gateway to students, faculty members and employees into the world of notable books on current affairs. The vision-based books that expand horizons in understanding Turkey and the world are chosen, read, and sometimes the author of the book is invited for a discussion. This time, we read Martin Jacques’ When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (Penguin, 2009). As I read this book, whose expanded second edition will be in print soon, I could not help but notice the striking similarities between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) experience in Turkey and that of the Chinese regime. In this respect, I believe there is benefit to be gained by reading the present and the future of Turkey from the Chinese perspective as much as with European and American references, and that this reading is best done by the left and social democracy, which have been the main themes of my articles lately.
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Lau Guan Kim attempts to unravel why China has to have its own unique way of evolving to a nation that is based on its 5000-year unbroken history
Unless the West understands that the Chinese civilisation is an integral part of the nation and its mindset, it will never understand why its democracy and human rights can never supplant the quintessential philosophies and glue that bind China to be a behemoth civilisation-state, as distinct from the Western nation-state]
Martin Jacques, citing from various sources, writes in his book, “When China Rules the World” (Subtitle: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World), the difference the West’s nation-states as contrast to China’s colossal civilisation-state, albeit China, still for allaying West’s Sino phobia, behaves as a Westphalian system of nation-state. It is this moulting of its brilliant civilisation, refined and quintessential culture that she encounters alien Western coercion and diktat that obstruct her very latent and now surfaced rising power as a civilisation-state.
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