Thursday, December 17, 2009

When China Will Rule the World

OK, provocative title, but in a thoroughly fascinating must-read interview with truthdig's Robert Scheer, renowned journalist Martin Jacques, author When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order, argues that China will have a much larger influence on the world within the next 40 years.

This quote (I'm sure there will be more, I just haven't finished the interview yet) really hit me:

I think the idea that the West has a monopoly of all things that are good and wise, and everyone else is still sort of in a form of barbarianism, and as they develop they’ll become like the West—I think this is a very hubristic way of thinking. I think every culture, or most cultures in the world, have their own bit of genius, their own bit of wisdom. Values like accountability, representivity, tolerance are not Western values alone. Most cultures have, in some way, embodied them. And there’s no doubt at all that there’s some fine values in the Chinese tradition. What one has to distinguish, I think, is between—it’s dangerous to compare a developing country with a developed country. And this is constantly—we insist that the developing world is like the developed world, that we measure them by the same standards of human rights, of democracy, and so on. But in fact they’re in very different situations, very different circumstances to us. I mean, when we went through our industrial revolutions—the United States, the European countries—we weren’t democratic. We didn’t have universal suffrage. So why do we insist that they have the same standards as we do now when we didn’t have them at their level of development? So we need to be historical rather than ahistorical about it.
This idea runs 180 degrees away from the concept of American exceptionalism (the credo of the far right and neoconservative movements). It's almost revolutionary.

Likewise, Jacques discusses how China will influence the world economically. Here's a brief exchange with Scheer (my italics):

Scheer: Let’s talk economically, then, and concluding this: Are they a threat economically? Will they take jobs from Americans? Will they take our oil?

Jacques: Of course there are going to be conflicts of interest, but I think it’s important to see two things in this context. First of all, that the rise of China has been hugely beneficial for the global economy, just like the rise of America after 1870 was very beneficial for the global economy. Of course some groups have lost out, in the United States and elsewhere, but if you look at the global picture, most countries, most people have benefited from the rise of China and will continue to; likewise with the rise of India. And the second point is, when I say “the end of the Western world” and so on, and “the rise of China,” we’re not talking about the demise of the West, the end of the West; we’re just talking about the end of a world shaped so much as in the past.

Scheer: “The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order.” We can’t conclude this without you telling me why I shouldn’t be afraid of … I was afraid of it when George Bush, the father, was talking about a new global order. Why shouldn’t I be afraid of China’s new global order?

Jacques: Well, it’s going to happen, and I think … the point I wanted to make is that, as we move into this era, 50 years down the line—I know about these things because I’m British, and my life has been framed by British decline. And Britain has lost huge status compared with 1945. But Britain is hugely richer. We Brits are, to a person, much richer than we were in 1945. So Americans will continue to get richer and richer in this new world. It’s not that they’re going to suffer in that sense; it’s just that America will lose power and status in the world.

Scheer: But the worldwide pie will expand?

Jacques: Of course it will.

Scheer: So it’s not coming out of our hide.

Jacques: Well, there are other factors that will affect this, like climate change—but treat that as an exogenous factor.

Ni hao, my brother!

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