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When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order |  | Author: Martin Jacques
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 13239
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 576
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 2
ISBN: 1594201854
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.51
EAN: 9781594201851
ASIN: 1594201854
Publication Date: November 12, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 32
 Kindle edition is vastly overpriced May 23, 2010
leevank (Catonsville, MD)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I downloaded the preview of this book, and it looks like a book I would like to read on Kindle, but I refuse to pay more for the Kindle edition than is being charged for either the hardcover or paperback editions. I am unable to fathom how any publisher justifies such an outrageous pricing policy. With the Kindle edition, there is no cost for paper, printing, binding, storage, or shipping. Most importantly, the publisher doesn't need to worry about having unsold copies of the book that have to go to the $1 remainder bin.
I'm not a member of the group boycotting anything priced above $9.99 (although that's the point at which I start feeling strong price resistance), but I refuse to be ripped off, and the way the Kindle edition is priced can't be characterized as anything other than an outrageous rip-off.
Fascinating and Provoking and Flawed March 25, 2010
jackzvt
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
But still despite some flimsy and clearly biased writing there are many kernals of truth buried in these 576 pages. Jacques could have cut 40% of the pages. An editor would really have saved me from slogging through 5000 years of Jacques recounting of Chinese history and some of it and it's conclusions are sketchy. He does have some good points to make about China and the Western world but this could have been written and edited better. He clearly and rightly makes the point that we really do not understand the Chinese mind and in that he is 100% correct. It is a mystrey. Even at the highest levels of our governments we do not understand the Chinese and we continually become flumoxed when they don't behave as we had expected. Our strategies are flawed because of that fact.
We expect that if we welcome them to our western "club" that they will act in predictable ways and yet our powers of accurate prediction has been poor. And will probably continue to be poor. I don't know if "...China Will Rule The World", but they have thrust themselves in position to be a contender both now and in the future.
Although Jacques uses an impressive array of graphs, charts, maps and measurements; I remember the story of the seven blind men each touching a different part of the elephants body (trunk, foot, ear etc) and each pronouncing what animal he thinks the elephant is--with all being wrong.
Some will find this book boring and pedantic but Jacques makes some very good points. i found it fascinating with reservations.
A weighty thought experiment March 24, 2010
Andrew Berschauer (Palo Alto, CA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
That China is on the brink of becoming the world's largest economy should be a surprise to no one. Martin Jacques, however, asks us to ponder this in the larger context of "the end of the Western World."
Hyperbole aside, When China Rules the World does a nice job of giving the reader a background on China's historic role in the world, its traditions, values, self-perception. Mr Jacques is convincing in this respect as he warns the Western reader that we (via our elected representatives and policy makers) think wrongly about China and its motives/motivations. Mr Jacques is less convincing when he extrapolates past behavior with future consequences of China's ascension to king of the hill. I don't dispute, necessarily, the warning he gives, I simply wonder what it actually means for us - a question he doesn't really discuss.
One example where the meaning of Mr Jacques warnings is relatively straightforward is in the competition for natural resources - oil, specifically. Anyone who reads the news sees this playing out today; China courting oil-producing nations in competition with the rest of the oil-importing world - at what point in the competition do prices really start to rise? Does that create a dangerous hair-trigger for a hot energy war at some point?
Other warnings are less clear in their impact: When China becomes the world's largest economy - then what? There's only one largest economy in the world today, and that (by itself) doesn't have the rest of world moaning - visiting England one doesn't see the Brits moping about because they ceded their perch at the top of the world to the United States following WWII. Mr Jacques actually says, when narrating its history, that China had a tendency to let the status quo exist to a large degree. Yes, there was a historical tributary system, but they didn't necessarily impose changes on those countries paying them tribute (presumably as long as the tribute continued to arrive).
Mr Jacques' discussion of a future tributary system is also unclear in what it actually means for the Western World. I'd argue that as an important financier of America's growing burden of debt, that the tributary system is alive and well right here, right now. It's a more modern version, perhaps, but it exists in the form of Return on Investment all the same.
When China Rules the World is not what I'd call a fun read (I recommend Tim Clissold's "Mr China" for an irreverent look at a Westerner's experience in the Middle Kingdom), it is an interesting and thought-provoking read. The history lesson is very good; the forecast for the future is provocative and ill-defined at the same time. China will soon be the world's largest economic player; while I don't think the sky will fall as a result, Mr Jacques makes a good case that we need to think differently about what really makes China tick.
An alarming book to be read with caution and discernment March 14, 2010
John E. Drury (Washington, DC United States)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
China's meteoric economic growth since 1978 is the core of this alarming book. Intellectual curiosity, if not economic survival, make this challenging book, chocked with charts and statistics, an important and timely read. His predictions deserve merit and thought and of course a lengthy period of time. Jacques fits comfortably with the anti-Western histories of Howard Zinn and Eric Hobsbawm. The West, according to him, is decaying and demonized along with its past colonialism. One asks; is this history or a lecture in revolutionary movements at the Sorbonne? He shows little balance and appreciation with the contributions of the West and its culture. Rembrandt, Beethoven, Rachmaninov, and Picasso may disagree. There is no analysis of the role of the Communist Party and its role since 1948. It is as if it did not exist. China's Communism equals Maoism; Soviet communism failed, Maoism triumphed. When it comes to democracy, Jacques is not keen on it either finding it only acceptable if it can take root in a culture. While on the possibility of a democratic Iraq, it is always Bush's debacle; the effort at democracy is "an alien transplant." Wonder what he thinks about all those purple fingers.
Important Topic; Frustrating Book; Misleading Title March 13, 2010
Mary Essary
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Most of the reviews on this book take issue with the author's politics. What bothered me about this book was how much it needed a better editor. It is a good first draft, but to me, it seemed very disorganized, repetitive, and just undisciplined. Not to mention, there is almost no time spent on the what will happen when "China Rules the World" -- the title should be "Look Out: here comes China, and they are different from you and me".
Topics are covered in a circular fashion -- not really in depth, but referred to over and over again. He goes into great details with tons of footnotes on some items, and then throws in a statement that is pure opinion with no references or even examples. He continually refers to China as a civilization-state rather than a nation-state as if this were an everyday distinction, but it seems to be his creation. I think that I understand these two terms, but he certainly could have laid a better foundation for defining them. And, at one point, he contradicts himself by stating "of course, one sees a parallel with the Romans or Egyptian empires". I thought that his whole point was that China is NOT like the Romans or Egyptian empires: China has lasted; they have not. [Where once there were Romans, now there are Italians; where once there was Latin, now there is everything but.]
What is so frustrating is that this is such a fascinating topic. In Houston Smith's book on world religions, he takes the viewpoint that there are three different ways of looking at the world, and that the Eastern religous/ethical traditions are built around relationships, very different from the Judeo-Christian culture [of individualism] that we take for granted. And, what we take for granted may not in fact be the only possibility for "civilized" man.
It is clear that China will be a dominant economic power in the 21st century: they already are. They hold our debt. If you look at the Fortune Global 500 rankings, in the past five years, the number of Chinese companies on the list has doubled; in 2005 there were a total of 16, the highest ranking was 31st. In 2009, there were 37, with one in the top 10 and three in the top twenty.
If you look at the clean energy sector, in five years, China has taken over the number one position in PV manufacturing from Japan; it is moving up to No. 1 in wind. Economically, China is living in the future. And, with approximately 1/3 of the world's population, its influence is bound to be felt. There is no need to go on and on with chart after chart "proving" this.
The big question is: what will this influence be?? There are teasers in this book -- Confusionism, how they deal with trading partners in Africa, hints from their history -- but these are briefly sketched over.
We have a materialistic heritage. "Fill the earth and subdue it" says Genesis. What exactly does Confucionism say? What exactly is its influence in modern China?
The important points that he makes in this book would have been a good magazine article. The points he touches on would have made a good book. This is neither. Someone needs to write a second edition. With a much less tolerant editor.
And, if I never see the word hegemony again it will be too soon. It seems that the author has a very limited vocabulary -- limited to words with three or more syllables that are not used much by the population in general.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 32
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