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

Martin Jacques (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 12, 2009

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A convincing economic, political and cultural analysis of waning Western dominance and the rise of China and a new paradigm of modernity. Jacques (The Politics of Thatcherism) takes the pulse of the nation poised to become, by virtue of its scale and staggering rate of growth, the biggest market in the world. Jacques points to the decline of American hegemony and outlines specific elements of China's rising global power and how these are likely to influence international relations in the future. He imagines a world where China's distinct brand of modernity, rooted firmly in its ancient culture and traditions, will have a profound influence on attitudes toward work, family and even politics that will become a counterbalance to and eventually reverse the one-way flow of Westernization. He suggests that while China's economic prosperity may not necessarily translate into democracy, China's increased self-confidence is allowing it to project its political and cultural identity ever more widely as time goes on. As comprehensive as it is compelling, this brilliant book is crucial reading for anyone interested in understanding where the we are and where we are going. (Nov.)
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Review

"A clear-eyed look at how China's recent modernization will leapfrog Western 'superiority'." -Kirkus Reviews

"Delivering a tour d'horizon of China's relations with foreign countries, Jacques envisions their future development as comparable to a comeback of imperial China's tributary system. Jacques' views will be discussion starters for trend-spotting students of the world scene." -Booklist

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The; Second Edition edition (November 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594201854
• ISBN-13: 978-1594201851
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #398,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Martin Jacques is one of Britain's foremost public intellectuals. A Visiting Senior Research Fellow at IDEAS, the London School of Economics' centre for diplomacy and grand strategy, a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and a Fellow of the Transatlantic Academy, Washington DC, Martin Jacques is widely respected as a leading global expert on what could prove to be the most important geopolitical event of the past 200 years: the rise of China.

Born in Coventry in 1945, Martin Jacques earned a first class honours degree in Economics at Manchester University, followed by a masters degree, and then a PhD from Cambridge University. He subsequently held a lectureship in the Department of Economic and Social History at Bristol University.

In 1977, he became editor of Marxism Today, a post he held for fourteen years until the journal's closure in 1991, transforming what was an obscure and dull publication into a the most influential political magazine in Britain. In the early 1990, Jacques co-founded the think-tank Demos, and worked as deputy editor of The Independent. He has been a columnist for the Times, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Observer, and the New Statesman, as well as writing for many newspapers and magazines worldwide, including Financial Times, Economist, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Daily Beast, New Republic, Volkskrant, Corriere della Sera, L'Unita, Il Mondo, Süddeutsche Zeitung, South China Morning Post, and Folha Des Paulo.

He has made many television programs for the BBC, including writing and presenting Italy on Trial (1993), The Incredible Shrinking Politicians (1993), a two-part series on The End of the Western World (1996) and Proud to be Chinese (1998).

In recent years Martin Jacques has worked as a Visiting Professor at Renmin University, Beijing, a Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Singapore,a Visiting Research Fellow at the Asia Research Centre at the London School of Economics, and a Visiting Professor at both Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, and at the International Centre for Chinese Studies at Aichi University in Nagoya.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

173 of 184 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Plenty to Chew On November 13, 2009

By Seth Faison

Format:Hardcover

Like many journalists who covered China in 1989, I thought it obvious that China's Communist Party would fall to ashes within a few years, having lost all credibility at Tiananmen Square. Got that wrong.

As China's economy took off in the 1990s, I knew for sure that steady growth would force the country to become more democratic. Wrong again. (Open, yes. Democratic, no.) At the very least, I figured, a broad swath of Western economists must be right to agree that China's modernization would require a following of accepted rules of Western finance. To develop, China would have to become more transparent and legally accountable, starting with a freely convertible currency. Right? Not really.

As Martin Jacques argues effectively in this book, the West has misjudged China because of a bedrock assumption that modern financial and political systems have to follow some basic principles of openness, rule of law and democracy. That is the paradigm that favored the United States, and paved the way for its world domination, from 1945 onward. But China's remarkable progress is not following the script, and is challenging Western assumptions.

With clear and compelling writing, Jacques makes the case that when China is the dominant power, it will make the rules. It may even create a new international paradigm, one that is just as hard for Americans to foresee as it was for the British a century ago to foresee their own decline, and as it was for the Romans, long before that.

"The West has, for the most part, become imprisoned within its own assumptions," Jacques writes. "Progress is invariably defined in terms of degrees of Westernization, with the consequence that the West must always occupy the summit of human development."

In the past few years, there have been dozens of books about China's rise. Most of them are mindless, over-the-top enthusiastic or else utterly alarmist. This one is an exception, a book that offers true food for thought, and plenty to chew on. It shook me from preconceived notions.

Jacques has limitations. His predictions about the future get more flimsy as he gets more specific. He glosses over the evils of Mao's era. But his critique of Western assumptions is pretty trenchant.

110 of 121 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars worth a read but with a critical eye December 28, 2009

By A. Menon

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The rise of China will likely be one of the largest shifts in global power in human history. The direction it goes and the consequences of the rise are what are pondered in this book and the conclusions are that they will be different than most expect. To be specific it is argued, China occupies a unique position of both size and cultural continuity that makes the nations priorities very different from Western priorities and the adjustment will be hard for people, but inevitable. It is hard to disagree with the high level conclusion that China's rise will continue and that it will be different from the Western growth model. That being said, as its not a contentious conclusion, the substance of this book is filled with imagery rather than fact, and goes between making interesting points and stating the obvious. It often tries to convince the reader of things that no person reading a book let alone this book would need to be convinced of and tends to be patronizing without a point. Regardless, there is a lot in this book, and for all that I dislike, it has interesting and important commentary nonetheless.

The book is split into two parts, The End of the Western World and the Age of China. The End of the Western World definately bothered me more, but luckily, it is the shorter part of the book. It goes to describe the history of Western success and US hegemony, and discusses how Japan is an example of a country which has modernized but has remained distinctly different from the West. One of the pieces of evidence that is discussed is the lack of a 2 party system with the LDP dominating as a one party system- reinforcing the point that its not really a democracy. Unfortunately for the author, the DPJ just took power after the LDP lost in a crushing defeat... The book then describes China's history from the Opium Wars and the pain that has caused the psyche of the people. The book then describes the rise of asia and the differences between western growth and asia. This chapter treats the reader like some sort of fool, who believes that being modern means having a starbucks on every corner and McDonalds is the cuisine of choice. There is actually a section describing food preferences and the fact that CHinese prefer chinese food to mcdonalds... Its very frustrating to read and almost made me just put the book down. Luckily, it gets better.

At this point in the book, I was particularly annoyed at the attitude of the author and his assumptions about the readers assumptions. The Age of China section is much better than the End of the Western World. It gives the reader a background of China in relatively decent depth. It describes biases and history. The uniqueness of the country/civilization that has no equal. It describes issues like racism, the repurcussions of Confucianism are described in depth. The attitudes of the state in foreign policy and sovereign rights. A lot of the statistics seem to be from earlier in the decade suggesting this book was written over a long period of time but only recently completed. THat being said, the main forms of argument of this section and the book, are images, not real facts. Chinese proverbs are used as evidence of the perspective, which I think is very ineffective, as for each one which supports a point, one can find another proverb which offers a different perspective. THe Rise of China is an incredibly important and seemingly irreversible process, this could have been a great opportunity to back up claims with case evidence, but that was really not done in any convincing fashion. The author often makes hyperbolized points, which within a paragraph become qualified with a much much more balanced perspective. An example is the description of China and democracy. China it is claimed has no need for democracy and there is no reason to expect it, based on their historical citizens arrangement with government, and the fact that the people are not demanding it today (there are several times when it is stated that the chinese need 8-9% growth as not to cause civil unrest implicitly stating that it is the growth that excuses the lack of demand for political rights and that citizens are willing to forgive political rights for economic growth)... Most people who make convincing arguments about China and democracy make the claim that democracy in China will follow from socio-economic developement. When people move to the point from having to worry about subsistence to worrying about their leisure time, their priorities of governance chance. The allusions to history are just not convincing arguments, they can be dismissed as contextual and the authors own description of growth needed to prevent civil unrest makes the same point as stated above. The author Im sure knows this, so after making a claim which is not backed up, qualifies it by saying, it probably will democratize, but not the way you expect. Well, I dont know what that means. Points like this should be argued with case studies, look at the political associations and power that the well off have vs the poor, look at how those have changed. If there has been no change in political ideals of a person/group as their socio-economic condition has changed, make a point. Unfortunately the book does not take this approach, it looks to the past when the world was little changing in a relative context to today, and makes inferences. To quote Park Chung Hee from Korea which also took a state centered followed by democracy approach - "In human life, economics precedes politics and cluture." If one is going to dispute this, one should be doing it with cases not words with no evidence.

The auther discusses a lot, and as a source of information, i recommend reading it. I dont recommend reading it though without being very critical. THe author is inconsistent at times and does not draw conclusions based on the evidence he presents rather than the feelings that he has about the subject. It often seems like the author is describing a 0 sum world, china moving up is the west moving down. The West has started growing again, given there are major issues still being worked through (though the author says the West is in a depression...) and there is a title called the end of the Western world. In my opinion if the US manages to grow, then that doesnt mark the end of the western world. As long as the quality of life per person is greater than in China or wherever, it is a model for something right? Otherwise one should just join the country with the greatest number of citizens. The end of strict western hegemony seems inevitable, but the west is a model for something as again, it has the highest living standards in the world. One should read Good Capitalism Bad Capitalism to get a sense that we are lookings for systems of success, not nations to champion. If china doesnt dominate the US gdp that would be a tragedy, it has 5 times the people... This balance of power perspective is what drives a lot of the commentary. It is an important perspective and it would be naive to dismiss it, but as long as the model for economic growth is yielding good results, it is a valuable model for how a society should run. One cannot compare China and the US/Western Europe. They are not anywhere close on a GDP per capita. The rise of Chinese nationalism is very much a result of the great things China is achieving and the desire to be a part of it and to show the world what the Chinese are capable of. It is not a we are better, any average chinese citizen would with a high degree of confidence switch place with a US citizen of chinese origin- as long as that is the case, we havent seen the end of the west. That phenomenon will be around for a long time and the end of that situation isnt even contemplated in this book, the more defining data point to the author is, when will china's GDP exceed the US. So as not to bore people, the book gives good history, discusses central aspects of Chinese culture that arent prevalent in the west, and discusses how they might manifest themselves on a global scale. That perspective is an important one, as the strategic power of China grows, so will its use of influence and it is important to understand the context of its perspectives. THe book does not however convincingly conclude any strong statement about how the cultural manifestations will look or whether they will emerge at all. Points are made with imagery and hand waiving, rather than documentations of continuity in a concrete fashion with any single case as China has made great strides and thus presented cases to be studied. I would hope that the next in-depth book on the rise of China takes a more concrete approach as that is what would really be fascinating.

116 of 128 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read Material! November 12, 2009

By Loyd E. Eskildson HALL OF FAME

Format:Hardcover

Martin Jacques' "When China Rules The World" carries a provocative title, but it should not be a surprise. Anyone can see this outcome coming by simply projecting economic growth in the U.S. and China at roughly their current rates; Goldman Sachs gave such conclusions credibility in 2007 when it concluded that China would surpass U.S. GDP in 2027, and double it by 2050. Jacques' book suffers not from an overly wild imagination, but from taking entirely too long to get this already obvious conclusion, and then not exploring enough about what that means for either Britain (his nation) or the U.S.A.

Far too much of "When China Rules The World" is taken up by a detailed historical summary and analysis of China's 5,000-some year history - to establish that it is not prone to colonizing other parts of the world, values unity among its people, and that its predominantly Han 'nationality' of people are becoming increasingly smug (racist?) as China's economic power grows. Jacques could have shortened this material enormously by simply pointing out that the key to China's recent growth has been the pragmatic orientation of its leaders. Obviously, economic growth has been their #1 objective since Mao's death, and public announcements communicated that the military would have to take a back seat. The late Premier Deng Xiaoping demonstrated this pragmatic focus when - despite being Mao's #2 and having been purged twice for not being a strong-enough Communist, he turned the nation's direction around after Mao's death. At the time, Deng explained his lack of commitment to ideology or history as follows: "I don't care if it's a white cat or a black cat. It's a good cat so long as it catches mice." This was interpreted to mean that being productive in life is more important than whether one follows a communist or capitalist ideology.

Regardless, even if Chinese history was the clear determinant of its direction, the topic is so immense and complex I doubt anyone but a Chinese scholar would have the resources or credibility to synthesize the thousands of years involved. That rules Jacques out. However, Jacques' material on today's China is much more useful.

Many China naysayers contend it cannot continue with anything near its recent growth rates because rising demand for labor will end the supply of its low-cost labor. Jacques, however, points out that China needs to create 8 million new jobs/year for its expanding urban population, plus another 15 million for new rural migrants coming to the cities. By 2020 it is estimated that there will be 553 million non-agricultural workers in China - 100 million more than in all the developed world. Another estimate is that 20 years from now China will still have 20% of its population looking for non-agricultural work - in other words, China has a relatively limitless supply of cheap labor.

How will China continue to rapidly grow its economy? First, by increasing its internal consumption, and secondly by moving up the value chain. Manufacturing comprises only about 15% of the cost of getting a product to market. China's leaders aim to increase China's proportion of the whole by raising R&D from $25 billion in 2004 to $45 billion in 2010 and $113 billion in 2020. China is also intensifying efforts to persuade overseas Chinese to return (eg. one-third of Silicon Valley's professional and technical staff are Chinese), and to raise the status and enrollment of its best universities. China has also been very successful in leveraging access to intellectual knowledge in exchange for granting foreign firms access to its markets. Then there's also its reputation for intellectual piracy. Jacques envisions strong Chinese total-product competition in aircraft manufacture, electric automobiles, communications, computers, and solar panels. Given their growing number of engineering graduates and American research labs located in China, I suspect they will also be strong contenders in household goods, biomedical products, wind turbine production - probably about any area they decide to move into, given their strong cost advantages.

Another reason some doubt China's continued success is that it isn't bringing democracy to the masses. Jacques, however, contends that very few countries have combined democracy (as now envisioned) with the process of economic take-off. (The U.S., for example, was late to grant voting to women and minorities.) Jacques also contends that developing countries are especially likely to value a government's ability to deliver economic growth, maintain ethnic harmony, limit corruption, and sustain order and stability as equal, if not greater values to democracy. Regardless, "When When China Rules The World" also presents data showing that most Chinese believe the political climate has improved since 1989 (Tienanmen Square), and 72% of its population are satisfied with the condition of the country vs. only 39% in the U.S. (As for the widely reported large number of civil disturbances within China reported each year, Jacques contends most have nothing to do with the central government - eg. local land issues.)

Bottom line - like it or not, China will become the major global power by 2050 - assuming continued rapid economic growth, and Jacques doesn't think that is going to stop. What does this mean? Jacques says Chinese companies will be the biggest in the world, as will its stock exchanges and banks. Macao will take Las Vegas' place as gambling capital of the world. The dollar will continue its decline and American military bases overseas will become increasingly difficult to finance. China's new aircraft carriers, stealth submarines, etc. will take over the Pacific near China, and its anti-ship missiles render the U.S. Navy obsolete. Taiwan will return to China's jurisdiction.

My projections for the U.S. are a return to protectionism and/or continued decline in our standard of living. Off-shoring will expand to include higher-level jobs such as engineering design, R&D, branding, corporate ownership, and even some marketing. Absent gaining control of our trade and government deficits, the U.S. risks substantial inflation. Government spending will have to drastically reduced at all levels, especially existing outlays for health care, education, and defense.

The "good news" is that there is already compelling evidence of U.S. overspending in all three areas. U.S. health care and education expenditures as a percentage of GDP are both about 2X and more those of other major developed nations, while U.S. defense expenditures (6-7% of GDP) equal those of the rest of the world combined (more if Homeland Security is added in). U.S. outcomes in these areas, however, are middling at best. Thus, about 15.5% of GDP could be eliminated from government and private expenditures for these three areas - about $2.2 trillion/year. In addition, Social Security benefits will have to be cut, the maximum level of taxable earnings eliminated, or both.

Jacques makes a very good point when he says that globalization was largely developed and instigated by Western nations, especially the U.S.; the benefits, however, have largely accrued to East Asia and China, and the drawbacks to the U.S. Combined with increased private and public efforts to outsource service jobs to India, and more jobs lost to technology, its going to be a very rough next few decades in the U.S.A. Americans need to be much more careful about what they wish for!