PETALING JAYA: China may overtake the United States as the biggest economic power in the next four to six years but this does not mean that it will instantly become the world’s superpower, says a leading expert on China.

Dr Martin Jacques, 67, author of the global bestseller When China Rules the World: the End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order, said it would take several decades, from between 2030 and 2040, before it could even achieve developed state status.

“It’d be a long way to go as a superpower,” he said at a talk on “China As Global Superpower: What It Means For Asia and The World”, hosted by the Asian Centre for Media Studies, based in Menara Star.

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PETALING JAYA: China continues to grab world headlines and dominate international news for many reasons. The world’s second largest economy is now expected to be the biggest in only a few years, with many far-reaching implications to follow.

World-renowned author and academic Dr Martin Jacques will be presenting a fresh look at the new China in a talk at Menara Star in Petaling Jaya at 2pm on Thursday.

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PETALING JAYA: China continues to grab world headlines and dominate international news for many reasons.

The world’s second-largest economy is now expected to be the biggest in only a few years, with many far-reaching implications to follow.

World-renowned author and academic Dr Martin Jacques will be presenting a fresh look at the new China in a public talk at Menara Star in Petaling Jaya on Thursday, Sept 27 at 2pm.

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Dr Odera Outa’s article “DO NOT WRITE OFF AMERICA JUST YET”[Star May 22,2012] is indeed dogmatic and oblivious current development in Asia and Kipling’s warning against British imperial hubris seen relevant to America to-day.

As Paul Kennedy a professor of History at Yale University has observed in Newsweek of February 2003,”the U.S. Military budget will soon be equal to that of all countries in the world combined.” Yet hawkish policy makers in Washington are concerned that the U.S. defense forces are dangerously thin and overstretched. How can both facts be true?

A book by Martin Jacques, “When China Rules the World” provides adequate and sacinet answers to economic rise in Asia. The book is a compelling and thought provocative analysis of global economic trends that defies the common western assumptions that to be fully modern, a nation must become democratic, financially transparent and legally accountable. Jacques argues persuasively that China is on track to take over as the World’s dominant power and that when it does, it will make the rules on its own terms, with little regard for what existed before.

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When the world continues to discuss China’s impact even when there are other issues to consider, China has clearly ‘arrived’.

CHINA’S unrelenting growth is continuing to fuel speculation about the implications of its spectacular rise for the rest of the world.

Its irrepressive re-emergence as a major world power shapes and colours private discourses, academic analyses and bilateral and multilateral discussions, whether or not intended originally to discuss China.

It permeates strategic discourses behind closed doors, casual coffeeshop talk and everything in between. The recent Germany-Malaysia Security Forum in Kuala Lumpur, sponsored by Konrad Adenaur Stiftung (KAS) and organised by ISIS Malaysia, was an example.

Germany’s political foundations like the KAS are affiliated with their respective political parties, and with the KAS it is with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s rightwing Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

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It should not take a political economist to see how the scores of books being published on China’s “rise” vary in quality and outlook, reflecting as much the standpoint of their respective authors as the subject itself.

Doomsayers insist modern China will break down or collapse, Cold Warriors persistently condemn Beijing for whatever it does, alarmists panic at the thought of “communist” China succeeding at anything, pragmatists take a balanced view of the big picture, and incurable optimists see only the positive side.

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KUALA LUMPUR: Foreign Minister Datuk Anifah Aman believes that there is a small group of people with “ulterior motives” playing up supposedly contentious issues between Malaysia and Indonesia.

In his meeting with his Indonesian counterpart in Jakarta on Thursday, he said they will discuss why a small group of people in Indonesia kept on playing up the Pendet dance issue despite the explanation given by the Discovery Channel to the relevant authorities. Anifah said he was confident that the small group of people who were repeatedly playing up the issue had ulterior motives.

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Renowned British author, broadcaster, scholar and journalist MARTIN JACQUES discusses his latest book, When China Rules The World: The rise of the Middle Kingdom and the end of the Western world with BUNN NAGARA in a comprehensive, 90-minute interview. Excerpts:

Is the provocative title to celebrate China’s rise, warn the West of its decline or fuel China-bashing?

None of them. It is to give a rough idea of what the book is about, to attract people’s attention.

Literal titles are boring, so it’s not a literal title. If and when China becomes the dominant power, the book shows what form of hegemony it would take.

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