This book is not the scaremongering diatribe it may sound from the title. If anything it errs on the other side, tending to be soft on abuses and highlighting China’s relatively benevolent but “different” characteristics — different, that is, in the eyes of those used to Western models.
Martin Jacques is a London-based commentator on international affairs with strong links to East Asia. He writes a regular column in the Guardian newspaper and is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics’ Asia Research Center. What this new book offers is a survey of the present and past nature of Chinese society followed by sober and not notably pessimistic speculation on what the world might be like when China’s economy overtakes that of the US, predicted by Goldman Sachs as likely to occur around 2027.
The anti-Communism so often encountered in the Western press in its dealings with China, focusing on the imprisonment of dissidents, the extensive graft, and the lack of independence of the judiciary, is not to the fore here. Instead, you read about the continuity of Chinese civilization and the lack of aggressive overseas forays in the country’s recent history, and learn that the absence of popular involvement in selecting the country’s leaders is entirely traditional.
more ‘Democratic’
Even on the issue of democracy Jacques isn’t outspoken. Anything resembling it is unlikely to emerge for at least another two decades, he writes, and even if it does, demands for the “return” of Taiwan are likely to be even more vociferous than they are at present. Popular sentiment on the subject is more intransigent than the words heard from today’s government figures, Jacques writes.
The author points out that Western states, while democratic at home, do not practice an equal representation of nations in international forums. So when China becomes the leading player, he argues, the international arena is at least likely to feel more “democratic” than at present, if only because China’s enormous population will finally be appropriately represented.
In the book’s short section on Taiwan there’s little to raise even the most active eyebrows. Taiwanese opinion on independence is volatile, we read, while China appears happy to leave the issue on the back burner and allow long-term trends to decide the outcome.
It would be very easy to compile a far more alarmist set of predictions. But this book sets out to soothe jitters rather than to prompt them, even though the author doesn’t specifically say this is his intention.
The text is somewhat repetitive. Jacques outlines his position, embarks on detailed analyses of China’s history in compartmentalized areas, and then states his position again in greater detail.
China is the product of a history and culture that have little in common with that of the West, he insists, and contrasts it with Japan, a country that may also be deeply dissimilar to US or Europe, but has nonetheless done its best to emphasize its Western characteristics since at least 1945. “The underlying argument of this book,” he writes, “is that China’s impact on the world will be at least as great as that of the United States over the past century, probably far greater.”
China’s distinctiveness is initially described under four heads: it is a “civilization-state” rather than a nation-state; it believes in the intrinsic superiority of the Chinese people; it has exercised age-old dominance in East Asia, symbolized by the tributary system; and the state, in marked contrast to the divisions that characterized much of Europe, has been unified for centuries.
But by the book’s end, the characteristics of modern China are listed as eight. They’re now the aforementioned four, plus four more. First is the long-standing refusal of the Chinese state to share power with any other institution (the church and merchants’ guilds are mentioned as having been powers-within-the-state in Europe). Things are little different under Communism than under the emperors and “something like the mandate of Heaven still operates.”
Second comes the unparalleled speed of the country’s recent transformation, followed by the rule of a Communist Party that has, according to Jacques, exhibited a flexibility and pragmatism far in excess of anything the former Soviet Union ever displayed. And finally there’s the fact that China is likely to combine the characteristics of a developed and a developing country for some time to come.
US Decline
Jacques feels sure that US power will decline. “Its medium-term reaction is unlikely to be pretty; the world must hope it is not too ugly,” he opines. Is it possible I detect a tone of anti-Americanism here, and elsewhere?
It’s easy to get annoyed with this book. The author mentions, for example, that Chinese leaders have been quick to quote the conclusions of the amateur British historian Gavin Menzies that Chinese explorers once reached American and Australian shores, without being outspoken about the fact that professional Western historians give Menzies’ claims no support whatever.
It’s not that Jacques is explicitly pro-China, but more that he’s at pains to avoid the usual invective, and eager to display current issues against their historical and social backgrounds. This, then, is a handbook for those who will have to deal with the new China rather than a re-packaging of old complaints and stereotypes.
Even so, you have to feel that a chapter on China’s judicial system would not have been out of place. It’s something that doesn’t bode well for human rights, now or in a China-dominated world. But human rights get little mention in this book.
Nevertheless, this is a reliable book in the areas the author opts to cover. It leans over backwards to give China its due, and this may not go down well everywhere in Taiwan. But then this is a book that’s as remarkable for what it leaves out as for what it includes.
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