When China Rules The World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World [Greatly updated and expanded] - Hardcover

Jacques, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0713992549 ISBN 13: 9780713992540

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2009

Synopsis

For well over two hundred years we have lived in a western-made world, one where the very notion of being modern is inextricably bound up with being western. The twenty-first century will be different. The rise of China, India and the Asian tigers means that, for the first time, modernity will no longer be exclusively western. The west will be confronted with the fact that its systems, institutions and values are no longer the only ones on offer. The key idea of Martin Jacques's ground-breaking new book is that we are moving into an era of contested modernity.

The central player in this new world will be China. Continental in size and mentality, China is a 'civilisation-state' whose characteristics, attitudes and values long predate its existence as a nation-state. Although clearly influenced by the west, its extraordinary size and history mean that it will remain highly distinct, and as it exercises its rapidly growing power it will change much more than the world's geo-politics. The nation-state as we understand it will no longer be globally dominant, and the Westphalian state-system will be transformed; ideas of race will be redrawn. This profound and far-sighted book explains for the first time the deeper meaning of the rise of China.

About this title

About the Author

Martin Jacques is currently a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. He has recently been a visiting professor at Remnin University, Beijing, the International Centre for Chinese Studies, Aichi University and at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, and was a senior visiting research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He was editor of the highly respected journal Marxism Today until its closure in 1991. He was founder of the UK think-tank Demos, has been a columnist for The Times and the Sunday Times and was deputy editor of the Independent. He currently writes a regular column for the Guardian. He is the co-editor and co-author of The Forward March of Labour Halted? (1981), The Politics of Thatcherism (1983) and New Times (1989).

From the Inside Flap

For over two hundred years we have lived in a western-made world, one where the very notion of being modern was synonymous with being western. This original and ground-breaking new book argues that the twenty-first century will be different. With the rise of increasingly powerful non-Western countries, the west will no longer be dominant and there will be many ways of being modern. In this new era of 'contested modernity' the central player will be China.

Far from becoming a western-style society, China will remain highly distinctive. Continental in size and mentality, and accounting for one-fifth of humanity, China is a 'civilization-state' whose characteristics, attitudes and values long predate its existence as a nation-state. China is already having a far-reaching and much discussed economic impact, but its influence will be far greater than this: China's rise signals the end of the global dominance of the western nation-state and the rise of a world which it will shape in a host of different ways. As it rapidly reassumes its traditional position at the centre of East Asia, the old tributary system will be resurface in a modern form, contemporary ideas of racial hierarchy will be redrawn and China's ages-old sense of superiority will reassert itself. China's rise will change the world as we know it, from one made in the west to one increasingly shaped by China.

This profound and far-sighted book explains for the first time the deeper meaning of China's arrival as a global power.

Edition details

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0713992549
• ISBN 13: 9780713992540
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 576