258 replies to this topic

[taiji in motion]

It is interesting to read the argument by Martin Jacques, a UK Chinese expert and professor, in his new book "When China rules the world". In this book he argues that due to its rising economy and its unique history, China always has been existed as a "Civilization-state" instead of a "Nation-state" - a model of recent 200 years old western institution invention. With its dominant rise in economy to become the world biggest in 2027, china will undoubtedly reassert its uniques way as a civilization-state instead of blindly following the western model of nation-state, a most recent model for new countries worldwide. China will reverse back to its own way, as had been proven by its long lasting and glorious history. The owrld order and culture outlook will not be as today and will definitely bearing a Chinese civilization shadow.

Below is the link to the relating article from Guardian.uk: http://www.guardian....ques-economics. You can follow other links to other Martin's articles as well as a slates of coments responding to his view.

What do you historians (or amateur historians) think?

[mohistManiac]

It is interesting to read the argument by Martin Jacques, a UK Chinese expert and professor, in his new book "When China rules the world". In this book he argues that due to its rising economy and its unique history, China always has been existed as a "Civilization-state" instead of a "Nation-state" - a model of recent 200 years old western institution invention. With its dominant rise in economy to become the world biggest in 2027, china will undoubtedly reassert its uniques way as a civilization-state instead of blindly following the western model of nation-state, a most recent model for new countries worldwide. China will reverse back to its own way, as had been proven by its long lasting and glorious history. The owrld order and culture outlook will not be as today and will definitely bearing a Chinese civilization shadow.

Below is the link to the relating article from Guardian.uk: http://www.guardian....ques-economics. You can follow other links to other Martin's articles as well as a slates of coments responding to his view.

What do you historians (or amateur historians) think?

Well you know I really want to read the article because I am interested when China unleashes its Bruce Lee fury so to speak but the link didn't work

[taiji in motion]

Here is the article, not sure why the link does not work well: http://www.guardian....-rule-the-world


Will China rule the world?

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Martin Jacques guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 June 2009 16.14 BST larger | smaller Article history

There is a growing recognition that China's economic rise will change the world. But that change is still seen in narrowly economic terms. There is an assumption that the political and cultural effects of China's rise will not be that great. This is profoundly wrong. The political and cultural impact will be at least as great as the economic.

There is always a time-lag in these matters but, as Paul Kennedy argues in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, economic ascendancy is a pre-condition for broader political and cultural influence. I suspect the reason for this tunnel vision is western hubris: a belief that our modernity is the only conceivable one, that our political and cultural arrangements will ultimately be adopted by everyone else. This is an extremely provincial mentality. Modernity is not simply a product of the market and technology, but is shaped by history and culture.

In a world where many developing countries are in the process of rapid economic transformation, we are witnessing the birth of diverse modernities. The idea that China, a huge country with a very long history, will somehow be "like the west", a clone of us, is an illusion.

So what will be some of the key distinguishing characteristics of Chinese modernity?

Although China has described itself as a nation state for the last century, this is largely a surface phenomenon. China has existed within very roughly its present borders for over two millennia and for virtually the whole of that period saw itself as a "civilisation state". It was only when it was too weak to resist the western powers in the early 20th century that it finally acquiesced in an arrangement that was alien to it.

In reality, though, China remains, in essence, a civilisation state. The Chinese see themselves in terms of a civilisation rather than a nation; those things that define a sense of "Chineseness" – from language and Confucianism to customs and the family – are functions of a civilisation rather than a nation; the overriding responsibility of the state is seen as maintaining the unity of Chinese civilisation; and the roots of the Chinese sense of superiority lie in its civilisational achievements.

A civilisation state, furthermore, operates in ways that are fundamentally different from a nation state: China embraces huge variations and it would be impossible to maintain its unity unless it tolerated diversity. This is why it was natural for China to offer Hong Kong a "one country, two systems" constitutional settlement. Such systemic diversity would be entirely unacceptable to a nation state. A world whose leading country is a civilisation state rather than a nation state would, in time, change the texture of inter-state relations in a very profound way.

China as a civilisation state existed cheek by jowl with the "tributary state" system: indeed, having survived for thousands of years, it only disappeared around a century ago. It was a highly flexible system embracing much of east Asia, including Japan and Korea, and was based upon the overwhelming dominance, both economic and cultural, of China. In return for recognising the superiority and pre-eminence of China – which was symbolically expressed in the sending of tribute to China – countries were given various forms of assistance and protection by the Middle Kingdom.

It will not be long before China is once more overwhelmingly dominant in the region. It would not be in the least surprising if some of the characteristics of the tributary state system once more came to shape and inform inter-state relations in the region. In other words, the rise of China could weaken and relativise the hitherto overwhelming global dominance of the European-designed Westphalian system.

The Chinese have a highly distinctive view of race: 92% of a population of 1.4bn believe they are of one race, the Han Chinese. This is in stark contrast to the other most populous nations in the world, such as India, the United States, Indonesia and Brazil, which believe themselves to be multiracial. The Chinese attitude is primarily the product of its extraordinarily long history as a civilisation state, which has led to a long history of the mixing and melding of races and engendered a powerful sense of Chinese identity.

This is reinforced by a widespread belief in polygenism, that the Chinese are a separate branch of humanity rather than sharing a common origin with the rest of us in Africa. The Chinese sense of superiority is thus rooted in biological, as well as cultural, attitudes and beliefs. One consequence is that the Chinese have little conception of difference, which is clearly manifest in their attitude towards Tibet and Xinjiang. These attitudes are age-old and are bound to influence Chinese perceptions and behaviour as a global power.

The Chinese state is constructed in an entirely different way from western states. Unlike European states, for over a millennium the Chinese state has not been obliged to compete for power with rivals such as the church, the aristocracy or merchants. The state stands extant in society, with no competitors and no clear boundaries to its power: rather than negotiating collectively with the state, other groups have instead traditionally sought favour and advantage on an individual basis.

The fact, furthermore, that modern China dates back to 221BC means that the state has enjoyed an extremely long history. For much of that period, it was explicitly based on Confucian ideas that, for their time, were very advanced: it is no exaggeration to suggest that China is the home of statecraft and, to this day, still possesses a very sophisticated state (albeit one that has never been directly answerable to the people but rather to a set of values, for the most part Confucian, more recently communist). With the rise of China, the Chinese state will come to exercise a growing influence on the world as a model to be understood and emulated.

In an era when the European communist tradition imploded, the opposite has happened in China: contrary to almost universal western expectations after Tiananmen Square in 1989, the Communist party not only survived but reinvented itself and, over the last 30 years, has presided over the most remarkable economic transformation in human history. Nor should we expect to witness its imminent demise; it probably enjoys greater prestige than at any time since 1949.

The rise of China, therefore, obliges us to return to an issue which was regarded as closed after 1989, namely the nature of the communist tradition. In this context, rather than emphasising its differences, I would stress the lines of continuity between Confucianism and Chinese communism. Indeed, it is the Confucian, rather than the communist, tradition that remains by far the more important influence in shaping contemporary Chinese politics and attitudes.

According to Goldman Sachs projections, the Chinese economy will overtake that of the United States in 2027, and by 2050 will be almost twice the size. This – together with the rise of India, in particular – will bring down the curtain on the age of the west, which began around 1800. Instead of western universalism, we will find ourselves living in an increasingly unfamiliar world in which non-western cultures, and above all China, will be the dominant influences.


Martin Jacques will be presenting an event at the Royal Society of Arts, London on 22 June to launch his new book, When China Rules the World
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[WuXiaHer0]

Well it's possible that China is destined to be no 1 worldwide influential country by 2050.I mean,take a look at China right now.China is one of the rising power in the economic world.The items made by them bearing the word "Made in China" can be found throughout the whole world.

History of China played a great role too.Its role in the WW2 introduced its culture to the whole world.Not just that.The Chinese diaspora took place almost everywhere in the world.There are so many of them.Just ask any passerby's on a busy street about China.I'm pretty sure they'll give you a skeptical look as though as you've been alienated from the Earth for a decade.

Edited by WuXiaHer0, 26 November 2009 - 09:57 PM.

[brightness]

Here is the article, not sure why the link does not work well: http://www.guardian....-rule-the-world

Sounds to me like another subtle hit piece hinting at the dangers of a rising China, and how it's a threat to (Western) civilization itself; I can smell the old term "oriental despotism" hanging right off the margins of the pages. Before the Westphalian system of treating neighboring nations as diplomatic equals, power politics and domination/submission was the standard practice all over the world. Almost every powerful state tried to build a universal state ever since ancient Persian time. "Nominal submission through tribute payment" sounds awefully like Darius (the Persian King) demanding small packages of "soil and water" from various Greek city states as symbols of submission to the universal empire that the Persian King was trying to build . . . i.e. the original story that prompted the term "oriental despotism" much resented by the "Free People of the West."

The author made an interesting comparison between Communism and Confucianism. I wonder if he knows that Karl Marx was inspired by the 17-18th century French Utopian Socialists, who in turn were inspired by the writings of Wang An Shi, a Neo-Confucian of the 11th century. Considering how militant the Neo-Confucians were, it's actually not a far stretch to call them ancient "Neo-Cons," the modern equivalent are ex-Trotskyist chicken-hawks (yes, many of the American "Neo-Conservatives" were communists in their youths). The 11th century Neo-Cons were just as over-educated, lacking in any real life experience running either real business or real battlefield, yet considered themselves intellectually far superior to everyone else in the society, and thought it was their right and duty to run everyone else' lives, including running a humongous and inefficient military as a weapon for belligerent diplomacy (in an effort to assert their superemacy over territories not yet included in the universal state). Such system of tight centralized domestic control and external warmongering of course always leads to failure, because "wisemen" are prone to miscaculations in the absence of market price mechanisms. So long as Chinese intellectuals are wedded to that statist philosophy, they are not going to find much success either. The decline of the West after WWII is very much the result of a pseudo-universal state built around the US and Bretton Wood (and post-Bretton Wood, as BW was only a transitional system to fiat money) dollar hegemony system.

I cringe when I hear Goldman Sachs pronounces projections; they may have great proprietary traders, but the public pronouncements are usually set-up's for their short positions. They pumped dot-com stocks in 1999; they pumped real estate securities in 2005-6 (even as they went short in their own portfolio; on the record only because they gloated about it later); They projected oil to go over $200/bbl in early 2008, shortly before oil price dropped from the $140/bbl peak to $25/bbl! Even as the news tonight is filled with the bankruptcy of Dubai, one can't help thinking the man-made container port island off Shanghai is much bigger than even Dubai's man-made resort island, and the container shipping market is dead worldwide! And the port has a major competition 50 miles away in Ningpo, and the two ports are fed by the #1 and #2 longest oceanic bridges in the world! How are they going to be able to pay the interest on these massive construction projects?

[Yizheng]

I don't place much stock in these kinds of predictions. 20 years ago, when the world was in euphoria at the fall of communism in Europe, Francis Fukuyama predicted the end of history. Well, and what of it?
When it comes to these predictions about boom economies, especially the BRIC countries and all that 'developing economy' enthusiasm, I find it sort of funny, since I live in one of these supposedly future big players, and it seems that these 'economic prophets' who pop in and out on business trips and see stock market reports etc, but not whole complex picture of life in these countries make smooth-sounding predictions that all too easily go wrong. Just look at how the current crisis suddenly caught so many of them out in Russia, for example.

As for becoming a worldwide influential power, there are two ways to do it really. One is the old Soviet model of 'we have power because the world fears us'. That's the easier model, you just need a big military, or a nasty weapon. Even North Korea and Iran are doing quite well at giving themselves disproportionate importance in the world.

The other model is to have not just military clout but also economic influence and be attractive in general, prosperous, stable, offering benefits to its own people and to those coming from outside. Well, by that count, China still has a long way to go. Of course, if the analysts just go to Shanghai and Beijing they get a brighter picture of course, but there are plenty of places in China where all this modern economic powerhouse stuff has made little inroad.

Oh and then there's these wonderful remedies, such as getting Chinese to save less and consume more. There's no questioning the basic economic model, it seems, we just all have to keep on consuming and consuming. The thing is, when you look at stuff like fresh water resources, energy consumption, environmental damage resulting from population growth, industry etc, it makes me wonder if there will even be much of a world to be the leader of in 2050, especially if we just keep following the same old short-term view economic model.

As for the values, civilisation thing, well, I guess Europe and America are secretly afraid of a real shift in power in the world. They imply 'oriental despotism' on the one side, but there's plenty of Western hypocrisy on the other side. In reality, all cultures and histories are more complex and varied than all these attempts to assign various values and outlooks to particular civilisations suggests. Personally, I would like to see a real shift in power to Asia-Pacific and Africa too, but I would hope it is above all reflected not in stock market figures etc, or simple military clout, but in real sustainable development in these countries and real sustainable and carefully planned use and development of the various competitive advantages and resources they have.

[Howard Fu]

There are still two big bumps in China's future. One is very dangerous. The other is even harder to escape. The first is politics. Everybody has been doubting if a communist regime can go along well with a market economy. So far it seems to work reasonably well. But in fact, almost every problem in China can be traced back to this one, from the surging housing price to unrest in the country. The GDP per captia of China now is $3,200. It will approach $10,000 within a decade. The conflict will become more and more obvious. The second is population. The one child policy means when this generation of people get old, the population will age very fast. If the one child policy continues, there will be more than 60% of people retired by 2050.

[WangGeon]

China is definitely a big player in the region and there is no doubt from anyone that it will definitely be a powerhouse in every sense of the word; that Chinese civilization has not been a dominant force, at least culturally, historically is a relative anomaly given East Asian historical development and so the rise of Chinese prominence is nothing at all new. Too much speculation, however, on how Chinese modernity is going to be and what role it will play in the future is more dangerous than it is productive.

History is to be studied to understand the current issues and act in the present, not mold oneself into a self-styled Nostradamus.

Edited by WangGeon, 27 November 2009 - 12:38 PM.

[taiji in motion]

In light of taking the lead, be responsible, be an influential example, China has just taken a major step in announcing a pledge to reduce by 40%-45% its overall emissions compared that of only 17% pleadge by the biggest emissions producer, America. This is a major breakthrough for the future of world environment for mankind.
Is China set it up on its ways to fullfill Martin's prediction?

[brightness]

On the emission issue, the Chinese government would be taking a leadership role if it stepped forward and said it's none of the government's business to control how the 1.3 billion individual Chinese would like to improve their lives or pass their gas; (the government can only pledge itself to cut 50% of its own emission by slashing government budget in half, if they really want some cut).

In light of the huge breaking scandal on how University of East Anglia, the source of much of the anthropogenic global warming fear-mongering, cooked the numbers, it is quite clear now that the whole emission control/cap-and-trade scheme was concocted to enrich a tiny elite at the expense of the billions of the poor and middle class of the world.

China needs to have a social life and resource allocation that caters to the individual Chinese people. Sure, understanding the outside world and being able to deal with the outside world from the latter's perspective is important, but Chinese need to live their own lives after gaining a good understanding of the outside world. Collectively directing resources to surpass this and that latest fad is not going to lead to anywhere. The world as big as it is, there are all sorts of scams going on all the time; some may last for a few years, some may even last for decades, but none of those scams are sustainable for the long run. Trying to out-communist the Soviets did not lead to anywhere for China; trying to out-produce Britain and the US in steel in the 1950's again did not lead to anything except for counter-productive human tragedies. Let the individual Chinese (or individual anyone else in the world) do their own things, and they will seek out prosperity for themselves. When the West embraced statist monetary policies in the early 20th century, Chinese government and intellectuals eagerly embraced "me too" in the name of "modernization" in the 1930's . . . ditching the sound market-chosen silver money system that had operated successfully in China for hundreds of years; Chinese economy was ruined by hyperinflation within a decade afterwards. That was in stark contrast to the Western reaction when they heard from Marco Polo that the Great Yuan were playing with paper monopoly money instead of gold or silver nearly 700 years before. The 13th century Westerners thought either Marco Polo was lying or the Chinese were out of their minds . . . despite the apparent richness of China. What wastrels (败家子) born into a wealthy family do with the family's fortune is often very different from the diligent work that brought forth the wealth to that family to begin with.

[ahxiang]

There are still two big bumps in China's future. One is very dangerous. The other is even harder to escape. The first is politics. Everybody has been doubting if a communist regime can go along well with a market economy. So far it seems to work reasonably well. But in fact, almost every problem in China can be traced back to this one, from the surging housing price to unrest in the country. The GDP per captia of China now is $3,200. It will approach $10,000 within a decade. The conflict will become more and more obvious. The second is population. The one child policy means when this generation of people get old, the population will age very fast. If the one child policy continues, there will be more than 60% of people retired by 2050.

Don't know where you picked up the number of $3,200.

Would you please take a look at
http://74.125.95.132...lient=firefox-a
to see how much the Chinese working for Walmart China make per year?

Check wakeupwalmart.com/facts/
for The Real Facts About Wal-Mart

The Chinese masses have utterly no bargaining power versus their government or compradore or foreign venturists.

A 2008 report by the National Labor Committee found that workers making holiday ornaments for Wal-Mart in Guangzhou, China were paid only 2/3 of the legal minimum wage, often worked 95 hour weeks, and were forced to work for months without a single day off. The report also found that children as young as 12 worked in the factory and that workers handled dangerous chemicals without even the most rudimentary form of protection, leading to serious skin rashes and sores. ["A Wal-Mart Christmas: Brought to You by a Sweatshop in China," The National Labor Committee, December 2007]


Better yet. China Daily picked up the abuse report. How are they to reconcile the numbers like your $3,200

http://www.chinadail...ent_9062356.htm

United States retailing giant Wal-Mart yesterday launched its own investigation into the findings of a New-York based human rights group, which levied serious labor abuse allegations against the company after inspecting five of its supplier factories in China.

"We take such reports very seriously," a statement from Wal-Mart said.
"We will take prompt remedial action if our investigations confirm any of the alleged findings."
A China Labor Watch (CLW) report, which was made public on Wednesday, alleged that employees in a number of Chinese supplier factories of the US retailer have been forced to work up to 77 hours a week in "poor working conditions"

Remember: The sons and daughters of the Chinese "elites" and nobles, upon stepping onto the campus of US colleges and universities, become the target of recruitment by the multi-national corporations, and transform into compradores upon graduation for such entities as Walmart.

I found China's legal minimum wage for you. It is 55 cents an hour (? US cents or RMB cents - you check out)

http://www.nytimes.c...5sweatshop.html
Minimum wage in this part of China is about 55 cents an hour.

I was in southern China in late 1980s. Those poor kids from neighboring counties like Dongguan and Shandou made about RMB400 per month. 20 years had passed. I guess the new generation of kids will be making about 600-900 RMB per month today. After comparing the numbers over this time horizon, maybe you will come to your senses.

Edited by ahxiang, 28 November 2009 - 01:43 AM.

[Howard Fu]

$3,200 is the nominal GDP per captia. Since the RMB value is seriously undervalued, the real GDP percaptia of China is closer to the PPP value $5,900.

Inequality is one of the big problems China faced I'm talking about.

Edited by Howard Fu, 28 November 2009 - 04:34 AM.

[Pattie]

Please watch your tone (and if you think applies to you, then it does). This topic falls under current events and while I'm willing to let it go for the moment, I will be watching closely.

Keep it civil like I know you can. ^__^

[ahxiang]

$3,200 is the nominal GDP per captia. Since the RMB value is seriously undervalued, the real GDP percaptia of China is closer to the PPP value $5,900.

Inequality is one of the big problems China faced I'm talking about.

Brother, good to know you care about the inequality. Remember that ultimately only us care about the plight of our brothers. Do not get carried away by the writings on the guardian.

About 80 years ago, Harold Isaacs, in commenting on the plight of the Chinese peasants, said that "Their [Chinese peasants'] poverty is China's poverty. This still rings true today.

[Howard Fu]

USA still has the best fundamentals of major economies. US still has most advanced technologies, best political system, rich resources compared to population size. The problem is Americans lie on these advantages and fool around too much in the last 20 or 30 years. The next 10 or 20 years will be hard to Americans, esp the lower class people, but it's also an opportunity to push forward those difficult reforms, esp in health care and education. China's economic fundamentals are still weak compared to most countries, but Chinese worked really hard and willing to sacrifice anything for economic growth for the last 30 years. The aging population will gradually slow down the economy and in 30 or 40 years, China will enter a long stagnation stage like Japan and Europe. America and China is like playing the teetertotter. When China goes up, America goes down. When America goes up, China goes down.