Praise for ‘When China Rules the World’

‘By far the best book on China to have been published in many years, and one of the most important inquiries into the nature of modernisation. Jacques’s comprehensive and richly detailed analysis will be an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to understand contemporary China’

– John Gray, New Statesman

‘The West hopes that wealth, globalization and political integration will turn China into a gentle giant…But Jacques says that this is a delusion. Time will not make China more Western; it will make the West, and the world, more Chinese’

– The Economist

‘An extremely impressive book, full of bold but credible predictions. If Jacques is right, we had all better sit up and take twice the notice’

– AC Grayling, Barnes and Noble Review

‘A meaty, well-cooked attempt to tell what I believe may be the defining geopolitical story of our time’

– Timothy Garton Ash, The Times Literary Supplement

‘This important book, deeply considered, full of historical understanding and realism, is about more than China. It is about a twenty-first-century world no longer modelled on and shaped by North Atlantic power, ideas and assumptions. I suspect it will be highly influential’

– Eric Hobsbawm

‘A useful corrective to those who assume that emerging superpowers, principal among them China, will recreate themselves in America’s image’

– Financial Times

‘Why China is what it is and what its destination will be are two eternal questions. I agree with Martin Jacques that culture is the key for understanding China. This is, without doubt, one of the best and most serious studies of China I have ever read – a fascinating book’

– Yu Yongding, one of China’s most influential economists

‘A rich portrait of contemporary China … it is one of the more informed accounts of what China is becoming and deserves reading’

Timothy Brook, Literary Review

‘The days are long gone since John King Fairbank and others wrote their magisterial histories, more is the pity. In the meantime, Martin Jacques has helped fill the gap’

– China.org.cn

‘This an extremely impressive book, full of bold but credible predictions … I suspect his book will long be remembered for its foresight and insight’

– Michael Rank, Guardian

‘Jacques’ thesis stands as a rejoinder to US triumphalism at the collapse of Communism in Europe. It is an implicit attack on … views that Enlightenment values and institutions – competition, elected government, balance of powers, promotion of inquiry, openness, an independent judiciary and press – are a requirement for China to continue its current success… The book’s general thrust is correct’

– Adrian Michaels, Daily Telegraph

‘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’

– Gerald Horne, Political Affairs

‘Provocative… a fascinating account’

– Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

‘[A] compelling and thought-provoking analysis of global trends…. Jacques is a superb explainer of history and economics, tracing broad trends with insight and skill’

– Seth Faison, The Washington Post

‘[An] exhaustive, incisive exploration of possibilities that many people have barely begun to contemplate about a future dominated by China. … [Jacques] has written a work of considerable erudition, with provocative and often counterintuitive speculations about one of the most important questions facing the world today. And he could hardly have known, when he set out to write it, that events would so accelerate the trends he was analyzing.’

– Joseph Kahn, The New York Times Book Review

‘Interesting … and disturbing’

– Larry Summers, formerly chief economic adviser to President Obama

‘The rise of China may well prove to be the defining economic and geopolitical change of our time, and few authors have given the subject deeper thought, nor offered a more illuminating analysis, than Martin Jacques.’

– Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money

‘[China’s] history and perspective are different, as Martin Jacques shows in his masterful When China Rules the World‘

– Robert J Samuelson, Washington Post

‘A very forcefully written, lively book that is full of provocations and predictions’

– Fareed Zakaria, GPS, CNN

‘A clear wake-up call.’

– Christian Science Monitor

‘As comprehensive as it is compelling, this brilliant book is crucial reading for anyone interested in understanding where we are and where we are going’

– Publishers Weekly

‘A clear-eyed look at how China’s recent modernization will leapfrog Western ‘superiority’.’

– Kirkus Reviews

‘Delivering a tour d’horizon of China’s relations with foreign countries, Jacques envisions their future development as comparable to a comeback of imperial China’s tributary system. Jacques’ views will be discussion starters for trend-spotting students of the world scene.’

 – Booklist

‘Martin Jacques’s scholarship, perspective and experience in observing Asia are all manifested brilliantly in this book, which performs a very valuable service to all who really want to understand China and anticipate world politics in the coming decades. It will be difficult to argue against his innovative central thesis that a modernizing and modernized China will keep her essential Chineseness in a new era of “contested modernity” ’

– Shi Yinhong, Professor of International Relations, Renmin University, Beijing

‘Jacques’s book will provoke argument and is a tour de force across a host of disciplines’

– Mary Dejevsky, The Independent

‘The must-read book for the Washington set today is Martin Jacques’ ‘When China Rules the World’. The journalist’s tome has a status amongst DC intellectuals best compared with the one Thomas Friedman’s ‘The World is Flat’ had five years ago’

– Tom-Jan Meeus, NRC Handelsblad

‘This is not simply a book about the rise of China, but about the many implications of China’s rise for the emerging world order and the way people all over the world live their lives. Martin Jacques has thought very deeply about this issue, and this far-sighted book gives us an important glimpse of the future’

– Kishore Mahbubani, Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore