A convincing economic, political and cultural analysis of waning Western dominance and the rise of China and a new paradigm of modernity. Jacques (The Politics of Thatcherism) takes the pulse of the nation poised to become, by virtue of its scale and staggering rate of growth, the biggest market in the world. Jacques points to the decline of American hegemony and outlines specific elements of China’s rising global power and how these are likely to influence international relations in the future.
He imagines a world where China’s distinct brand of modernity, rooted firmly in its ancient culture and traditions, will have a profound influence on attitudes toward work, family and even politics that will become a counterbalance to and eventually reverse the oneway flow of Westernization. He suggests that while China’s economic prosperity may not necessarily translate into democracy, China’s increased self-confidence is allowing it to project its political and cultural identity ever more widely as time goes on. As comprehensive as it is compelling, this brilliant book is crucial reading for anyone interested in understanding the where we are and where we are going.
This article appears in the Church of England Newspaper, August 21, 2009 edition, on page 16.
One interpretation of the global economic crisis is that it marks an important moment in the shift of power from the US to China. In his new book When China Rules the World (Penguin, £ 30.00) Martin Jacques argues that the fact that China is such a huge creditor and the US such a colossal debtor ‘reflects a deep shift in the economic balance of power between the two countries’. He sees China seeking to establish a new international reserve currency to replace the dollar and pushing to create an alternative to the the IMF, a the body in which China participates but which it has criticised in the past.
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There has been quite a buzz lately over Martin Jacques’ When China Rules the World. I will confess, I have not had the chance to read the book, so this should not be taken as a review of it; that would not be fair to him—let alone to all of you. Still, I have had the chance to look over Jacques’ comments in an interview with Macleans, and I can already tell his thesis has problems—problems that make the entire notion of China or, to be more precise, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—running the planet to be utterly laughable.
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With the astonishing rise of China in the past three decades, the the accompanying scheme decline of the West and the flaws in the capitalist system revealed by the global financial crisis, Martin, of Jacques’ When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom, and the the End of the Western World (Allen Lane, Special Indian Price: Rs, 699) has come at the right time. Jacques, who was the last editor of the defunct of British magazine, Marxism Today, brings a broadly left perspective to his study of sympathetic to China with a few benign qualifications that became necessary if it was to avoid the blunders, which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. As the cliché went at the time, “too much glasnost, too little perestroika.” But he is clear on the central tenets of the Chinese brand of socialism: that free markets cannot work in the long run and that democracies don’t correct their mistakes on their own volition. Controls were necessary and western concepts of democracy and the rule of law were not necessary preconditions for the West’s economic power; they were merely a coincidence and, in any case, do not apply ipso facto to other states with different historical backgrounds.
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On October 1, China will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its founding as a modern nation-state. It is a momentous anniversary since it marks the completion of a full 60-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac, and symbolises a metaphorical rebirth of an ancient civilisation. To mark this milestone moment, the Chinese government will unveil a dazzling series of events to showcase the country’s evolution and ascendance, much as it did at last year’s Beijing Olympics.
The anniversary coincidentally comes at a time of Great Change in the world economic order. That coming economic powershift is underlined by the global financial meltdown of 2008 and the enfeebled nature of Western economies, coupled with China’s rapid economic growth in the 30 years since it opened up to the point where, in Goldman Sachs’ bullish estimation, it will be the world’s largest economy by 2027!
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A few years ago, I read a terrific collection of essays — It Must be Beautiful — on the great scientific equations of modern times. I loved it, but as I meandered through the book, I was struck by an unexpected poignancy. The first essays, by and large, described breakthroughs that had taken place in the laboratories of Europe. The second half was quite different. Some time in the 1920s, the balance of scientific discovery shifted inexorably to the U.S. A small book of essays held within it proof of a profound historical change.
I found myself thinking of that while reading a new book by Martin Jacques, a British journalist turned academic. Jacques’ tome is called When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order, and his thesis, which he advances with a depth of argument often missing in similar works, is made plain enough by his title. The most likely scenario for the future, Jacques writes, is that “China continues to grow stronger and ultimately emerges over the next half-century, or rather less in many respects, as the world’s leading power.” His book is an examination of how and why that will happen, and what it will mean.
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We are now witnessing a historic change destined to transform the world. Not bad, that, for an attention-getting opening, and it is a foretaste of many provocative statements in this hand grenade of a book.
Such as the subtitle: The Rise Of The Middle Kingdom (China) And The End Of The Western World. The end? How soon? Oh, in a mere 20 or 30 years.
Economic forecasters at Goldman Sachs predict that China will overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy in 2027. By 2050, China’s economy will be twice the size of those of the U.S. and India, its only rivals. The only European economies in the top ten will be the UK (ninth) and Germany (10th).
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Recent books dealing with China’s unprecedented development over the last 30 years and its future have an annoyingly-repetitive habit of starting out by yelling the big facts: the country’s GDP growth, urban migration, education levels – and normally a concern or two about corruption, reforms and opacity. While these are all important issues to address, it does make the majority of these titles blend into one singular snapshot of the country.
At least journalist Martin Jacques tries a different and more anthropological tact. When China Rules the World leaves it until page 73 before it seriously starts to look at China and its current position. Until that point the book concentrates on exploring previous models of industrial revolution: Britain’s in the 1750s, the United States’ soon after, and Japan’s rise in the 19th and early 20th century following its adoption of many Western institutions and attitudes.
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“When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go: downtown.” So warbled the British singer, Petula Clark in the 1960s. However, today if solitude is your constant companion, I would suggest that you purchase a copy of this riveting book and read it on the bus and in airports – as I have been doing in recent days, with the dramatic words on the bright red cover of this weighty tome blaring insistently – and no doubt you will find, as I have, that your reading reverie will be constantly interrupted by a stream of anxious interlopers curious to know what the future may hold.
For like Petula Clark, the author too hails from London, though the startling message he brings decidedly differs from her melancholy intervention. For it is the author’s conclusion that sooner rather than later, China – a nation ruled by a Communist Party – will have the most sizeable and powerful economy in the world and that this will have manifold economic, cultural, psychological (and racial) consequences. Strangely enough, Jacques – one of the better respected intellectuals in the North Atlantic community – does not dwell upon how this monumental turn of events occurred. To be sure, he pays obeisance to the leadership of Comrade Deng Xiaoping, who in 1978, opened China’s economy to massive inward foreign direct investment, which set the stage for the 21st Century emergence of the planet’s most populous nation. Read more >
The Chinese state has a competence that far exceeds that of Western states
There is a standard Western reflex to any discussion about China: it is not democratic. True, but that does not get us very far. Nor was any Western country during its economic take-off; nor was Japan; and nor were the Asian tigers. The great majority of countries have not been democratic during their period of take-off: the most obvious, and remarkable, exception is India. As for China, about half the population still lives in the countryside, meaning that its economic take-off – the shift from agriculture to industry, from the countryside to the cities – still has a long way to run.
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