The New York Times Book Review 23/09/11 

Spheres of Influence

It seems inevitable that Chinese-­American relations will increasingly come to preoccupy the world. The United States continues to be the only global superpower, but in the not-too-distant future China promises to acquire the status of an equal or near equal. How this relationship evolves during a period when the balance of power between them is shifting so rapidly is inevitably a cause for concern. 

To be sure, there is at least one important source of encouragement. Ever since the Nixon-Mao rapprochement in the 1970s, the relationship between the two countries has been remarkably stable, notwithstanding the many changes of leadership and the numerous twists and turns of history. The future, though, promises to be different. 

In “A Contest for Supremacy,” Aaron L. Friedberg outlines several reasons a closer relationship between the two powers is possible: economic interdependence, the prospect that China may become more open and democratic, its continuing integration into the international system, common threats like climate change and nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, he believes two other factors — a growing clash of interests and deep ideological and political differences — will prove more decisive and will make the relationship more tense and competitive. 

For Friedberg, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, the stakes could hardly be greater. He quotes Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore: “If you do not hold your ground in the Pacific, you cannot be a world leader.” Signaling his agreement, Friedberg writes: “If we permit an illiberal China to displace us as the preponderant player in this most vital region, we will face grave dangers to our interests and our values throughout the world.” Asia, as he correctly observes, is the key crucible of future conflict, with East Asia in particular set to assume central importance. This, after all, is China’s backyard. It is already the most important economic region in the world.

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The National Interest 07/07/11

China to Trounce U.S. in Next Decade

The Western financial crisis heralded a significant shift in the balance of power between the United States and China. Most starkly, it brought forward the date when the Chinese economy will overtake the US economy in size from 2027 (the Goldman Sachs projection in 2005) to 2020. The reason is simple: while the US economy is around the same size as it was in 2008, with the prospect of perhaps a decade of very weak growth ahead, the Chinese economy has continued to grow at around 9 percent and future economic growth is likely to be in the region of 8 percent. While 2027 sounded sufficiently far in the future to sound speculative, 2020, in contrast, is less than a decade away and feels much more like an extension of the present. The rise of China and the decline of the United States is becoming more tangible by the year.

Significant landmarks are happening thick and fast: in 2010, China overtook Germany to become the world’s largest exporter; in the same year it overtook Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy; at the beginning of 2011, it overtook the United States to become the world’s largest manufacturing nation, a position the United States had held for 110 years; in 2020, if not earlier, it will overtake the United States to become the world’s largest economy; and perhaps not too long afterwards, when the renminbi is finally made convertible, the latter will replace the dollar as the world’s leading reserve currency. With each landmark we move a little further away from a world shaped by the United States and toward one shaped by China.

There has been a strong tendency in the West to see this world in narrowly economic terms, with China assuming similar characteristics as the United States during the process of its rise and the global furniture that we are familiar with remaining little changed.

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Lecture: When China Rules the World - Martin Jacques

Old Theatre

Wednesday 13 January 2010

China as the New Global Power

Monday 11 January 2010

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Panel discussion on Fareed Zakaria GPS - 12th December 2010

TedTalk -- London on 2 November 2010

Because of a jam-packed week, my time at this year's World Economic Forum was limited. But as is always the case with Davos, there were more than a few snapshot-worthy moments. Things got off to an interesting start before I even arrived. I happened to be on the same flight from D.C. to Zurich as Larry Summers, who was reading Martin Jacques' weighty tome, "When China Rules the World. His review: "Interesting...and disturbing."

(Arianna Huffington Davos Diary, The Huffington Post)

The must read book for the Washington set today is Martin Jacques’, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order. 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. Obama’s economic advisor Larry Summers was spotted brooding over it on a plane to Davos recently.

 (NRC Handelsblad 18/02/2010)

Recent reviews of When China Rules the World

The Washington Post

Seth Faison

Martin Jacques, a British news columnist, became fascinated by the manic modernization underway in China when he visited there 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.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

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New York Times

Joseph Kahn

Historians may someday debate whether the financial crisis that began a year ago is most notable for how much damage it did to the United States, or how little it inflicted on the world’s major rising power, China. Helped by huge state intervention and buoyant optimism almost surreally undiminished by the crisis of confidence across the Pacific, China has had a very good downturn. It is closing the gap with the world’s most developed economies faster than anticipated and could overtake Japan as the world’s second-largest economy when the final figures for last year are tallied.

China’s already rapid emergence is changing many things, from diplomatic alliances in Africa to the status of the dollar as the world’s favorite currency. It may also open minds to a provocative thesis that, until a short time ago, might have been dismissed as breathless hyperbole.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

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Martin Jacques spoke at Harvard University on 12th November 2009

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On France 24 News Internation Martin Jacques tells Armen Georgian why he thinks Western policymakers have vastly underestimated the cultural and political effects of China's economic ascendancy.

16th December 2010.