difficult to see why China is, and will
remain, very distinct; and why a world
shaped by China rather than the West will
look very different.
This brings me to my final point. The
West needs to understand China – but can
it, will it? For two centuries Westerners
have looked down on the Other in the
belief that we are superior, that we have
nothing to learn from others. This way of
thinking is deep in our psyche. But now we
are faced with a completely new challenge:
the rise of a huge country that is very
different and which in time will usurp the
dominance of the West. Can we come to
respect the Other, in the shape of China?
Can we accept and believe that increasingly
we will have to learn from the Chinese? This
requires a metamorphosis in our mentality
and way of thinking.
The danger is that we will remain in
denial, or that we will pay lip-service to the
need to learn but essentially carry on in the
same old way. If we do, then we will
become increasingly marginalised and
ultimately irrelevant. We cannot stop
China’s rise. This is one of the great secular
transformations of history. The question is
not prevention but adaptation. China was
faced with the same task in the nineteenth
century with the rise of Europe and went
into a state of denial and ultimately decay.
The choice is ours.
Martin Jacques is the author of 'When China
Rules the World: the End of the Western World
and the Birth of a New Global Order’. He is a
Senior Fellow at the Department of Politics
and International Studies, Cambridge
University, a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua
University, Beijing, and a non-resident Fellow
at the Transatlantic Academy, Washington DC.
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