When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order - Hardcover

Jacques, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1594201854 ISBN 13: 9781594201851

Publisher: Penguin Press, 2009

Synopsis

How China's ascendance as an economic superpower will alter the cultural, political, social, and ethnic balance of global power in the twenty-first century, unseating the West and in the process creating a whole new world

According to even the most conservative estimates, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027 and will ascend to the position of world economic leader by 2050. But the full repercussions of China's ascendancy-for itself and the rest of the globe-have been surprisingly little explained or understood. In this far-reaching and original investigation, Martin Jacques offers provocative answers to some of the most pressing questions about China's growing place on the world stage.

Martin Jacques reveals, by elaborating on three historical truths, how China will seek to shape the world in its own image. The Chinese have a rich and long history as a civilization-state. Under the tributary system, outlying states paid tribute to the Middle Kingdom. Ninety-four percent of the population still believes they are one race-"Han Chinese." The strong sense of superiority rooted in China's history promises to resurface in twenty-first century China and in the process strengthen and further unify the country.

A culturally self-confident Asian giant with a billion-plus population, China will likely resist globalization as we know it. This exceptionalism will have powerful ramifications for the rest of the world and the United States in particular. As China is already emerging as the new center of the East Asian economy, the mantle of economic and, therefore, cultural relevance will in our lifetimes begin to pass from Manhattan and Paris to cities like Beijing and Shanghai. It is the American relationship with and attitude toward China, Jacques argues, that will determine whether the twenty-first century will be relatively peaceful or fraught with tension, instability, and danger.

When China Rules the World is the first book to fully conceive of and explain the upheaval that China's ascendance will cause and the realigned global power structure it will create.

About this title

About the Author:

Martin Jacques co-edited and co-authored The Forward March of Labour Halted?, The Politics of Thatcherism, and New Times. Jacques co-founded the UK think-tank Demos, has been a columnist for the Times of London, and was editor of Marxism Today and deputy editor of the Independent. He currently writes a regular column for the Guardian and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre.

From The Washington Post:

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Review by Seth Faison Martin Jacques, a British news columnist, became fascinated by the manic modernization underway in China when he visited in 1993. He saw construction cranes working round the clock, roads streaming with trucks and carts, and peasant women balancing wares on either end of a bamboo pole. The vibrant energy and evident willpower got Jacques musing: Would the economic boom follow the Western model? Or would China pursue modernity in its own way? Jacques went for a holiday in Malaysia. One day, while he was out for a run on the beach, his eye chanced upon a dark and attractive woman. A 26-year-old lawyer, she was not an obvious match for a pink-skinned, pointy-headed, chronically unmarried Brit who was nearing 50. But the woman, Hari Veriah, who was born in Malaysia to Indian parents, was fearless and modern-minded, and her Asian perspective was like tinder to his spark. As Veriah and Jacques spent time together, she challenged his assumptions and encouraged him to deepen his exploration of the East-vs.-West dynamic. His musings led to research. Trained in number-crunching and Marxist historical analysis and bolstered by extended sojourns in Asia, Jacques honed a convincing answer to his original question. For the better part of 15 years, with one tragic interruption, he dug and dug and then transformed his scholarly spadework into accessible, inviting prose. The result is "When China Rules the World," a compelling and thought-provoking analysis of global trends that defies the common Western assumption 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 came before. China is growing at a tremendous rate. Yet it refuses to follow the Western model of establishing genuine elections, an independent judiciary and a freely convertible currency. In fact, its restrictive currency rules have made China the world's leading creditor, while the United States sinks ever deeper into debt. And while the United States sacrifices the lives of its soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Chinese make money in both countries without losing a drop of blood. Jacques is a superb explainer of history and economics, tracing broad trends with insight and skill. He does not shy away from the considerable challenges China faces. Yet he glosses over Mao's terrors too easily. He stumbles badly when trying to describe what a new Chinese-led international order might look like, implausibly imagining a return of the old tributary system, where small neighboring states paid in gifts and gold to the reigning power: China. His theories about the significance of a Chinese "civilization" over a Chinese "nation" seem silly and misplaced. Books about the future never get it right. But this one offers tasty meat to chew on. Its prime achievement is to identify and then annihilate what may be the greatest flaw in Western thinking today: the assumption that economic and political progress must follow the Western model. Like the Brits and the Romans before us, we Americans may be unable to see the end of empire until it is too late. Personally, I felt humbled by Jacques's insights. As a journalist who lived and breathed China for years, I felt sure that the Communist Party, following its loss of credibility at Tiananmen, would fall to ashes. During the boom of the 1990s, I knew that economic modernization would force Chinese institutions to become accountable and democratic. I was wrong again and again. My assumptions were out of date. Still, one can't help wondering if China's trajectory, as unwavering as it may look now, may fizzle. Take, for instance, China's inability to accept or integrate outsiders -- Jacques calls it "the Middle Kingdom mentality." He explores it and China's prevalent racism in detail, for reasons that grew from painful experience. Jacques and Veriah married and moved to Hong Kong, where she suffered an epileptic seizure and was hospitalized. She warned Jacques that the Chinese medical staff was treating her like a third-class citizen because of her dark skin and Indian ancestry. The next day she died. Jacques later determined that negligence by the hospital staff had killed her. Left with their 1-year-old son, Jacques was devastated. It was two years before he could pick up a pen. When he did, his work was infused with a passion that honors the woman who brought him to rethink his approach to China. Her death stands as a symbol of China's dark limitations and leaves us with questions about its future. bookworld@washpost.com
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1594201854
• ISBN 13: 9781594201851
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 576