32 CHINA DAILY EUROPEAN WEEKLY November 10 ­ 16, 2017 LAST WORD Prescient author now rules the roost Writer who predicted the rise of China as a global power argues country has proved its model of governance works

By ANDREW MOODY BIO [email protected]

artin Jacques, the jour­ Martin Jacques nalist and academic, is Journalist and author now seen by many as the man of the moment in Age: 72 MChina. Education: Eight years ago, his seminal and King Henry VIII School, Coventry, best­selling work, When China Rules 1957­64 The World — which was one of the first BA (Economics) (first class honors), to seriously examine the implications Manchester University, 1967 of the rise of the former Middle King­ MA (Economics) Manchester Uni­ dom — was widely criticized when it versity, 1968 was published. It was even dismissed PhD, King’s College, Cambridge, by former Hong Kong governor Chris 1976 Patten as “silly”. Career: With a newly self­confident China Executive committee member, striding into a “new era” after the CPC’s Communist Party of Great Britain, 19th National Congress last month, his 1965­1990 ideas are very much in vogue. Tutor, economic history, King’s Col­ Jacques, a youthful 72, perhaps not lege, Cambridge, 1969­71 unnaturally, feels slightly vindicated. Lecturer, economic and social histo­ “I have spent a lifetime thinking ry, Bristol University, 1971­77 deeply about a lot of political and cul­ Editor, Marxism Today 1977­91 tural questions and I didn’t find it diffi­ Editor­founder, Demos, London­ cult to see that China was rising and based think tank, 1993 the West was declining. If you look at a Deputy editor of The Independent lot of China writers, however, they nev­ 1994­96 er got it,” he says. Visiting fellow, London School of Jacques, who was a sought­after Martin Jacques sees China as having moved into a new historical period after the election of Xi Jinping as general secretary Economics Asia Research Centre, guest on Chinese and international tel­ of the Central Committee of the CPC in November 2012. ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY 2003­08 evision channels during the meeting, Bosch Public Policy fellow, Transat­ was speaking at Shaoyuan Hotel on ing the perspective about China and wing political magazine to one that or all the land under heaven, and there lantic Academy, Washington, 2010­11 the Peking University campus, where moved it away from defining itself in contained views and opinions from were no frontiers or borders and no Senior fellow, Department of Politics he was lecturing. narrow economic terms, which I across the political spectrum as Marga­ essential differences between peoples,” and International Studies, Cambridge Also visiting professor at the China think had been the case after Deng ret Thatcher rose to power. he says. University, 2013­present Institute at Fudan University in Shang­ Xiaoping’s reform and opening­up in Its contributors including the late The book received a very critical Visiting professor, Institute of Mod­ hai, he believes the congress, during the late 1970s. Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, reaction from Western Sinologists, in ern International Relations, Tsinghua which Xi Jinping Thought on Social­ “He has emphasized the Chinese who Jacques regarded as a mentor. particular, who regarded Jacques as an University, Beijing, 2016­17 ism with Chinese Characteristics for a Dream and national rejuvenation as Jacques went on to be deputy editor interloper on their territory. Visiting professor at the China Insti­ New Era was enshrined in the Party’s well as being more proactive on the of The Independent newspaper in the “I wasn’t a Sinologist in any shape or tute, Fudan University, 2017­ Constitution, was a defining moment. global stage with initiatives such as the mid­1990s and combines being a high­ form. My studies had all been about Author of When China Rules The “Xi wanted to underscore the fact Belt and Road Initiative and the forma­ profile columnist with lecturing the West but I think I had a sensitivity World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom that the Chinese economy is not gravi­ tion of the Asian Infrastructure Invest­ around the world. to other cultures. and the End of the Western World tating toward capitalism. It is not ment Bank.” Jacques says his late wife Harinder “I have always had a lot of respect for (2009) going to end up as a Western­style The academic argues where this Veriah, a Malaysian­Indian lawyer Sinologists who have spent years at the Book: Guns, Germs and Steel: A economy or a Western­style polity and matters most is in the developing who he met on holiday on the island of coalface trying to understand China. Short History of Everybody for the that it is going to remain profoundly world, particularly in Africa, which Tioman off the east coast of Malaysia Some have a silo mentality though. Last 13,000 Years by Jared Diamond; different. And, in that sense, it remains sees China as a role model. in 1993, inspired him to write his semi­ They dig deep but very narrowly. Many The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: firmly in a socialist rather than capital­ “The great axis that has changed is nal book, which has now sold more American Sinologists, in particular, Patterns of Japanese Culture by Ruth ist tradition.” that between China and the develop­ than 400,000 copies and has been also believe in American exceptional­ Benedict; and Selections from the Jacques believes the global financial ing world. The United States cannot translated into 15 languages. ism and that the US is the example to Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. crisis of 2008 and 2009 began to her­ relate to it in the way that China can. “She taught me to see the world follow.” Film: Persona (1966, directed by ald a change in the world which he China is a developing country and can from a non­Western perspective. If you Contrasts have been made between Ingmar Bergman), The Conformist believes has been followed by what he understand the problems of develop­ are always with someone of the same Jacques’ book and US political scien­ (1970, directed by Bernardo Bertoluc­ sees as a governance crisis in the West, ment in a totally different way.” culture you are an insider and never tist Francis Fukuyama’s The End of ci) and Marx Brothers film Duck Soup providing the backdrop for a resurgent Jacques, who is a well known left­ looking from the outside. She helped History and the Last Man, which was (1933, directed by Leo McCarey) China. wing thinker in the UK, was born in me see my country from an outsider’s published in the early 1990s after the Music: Violin Concerto in D Major “The United States has been Coventry in England almost immedi­ perspective,” he says. collapse of the Soviet Union and by Pyotr Illyich Tschaikovsky plunged into an era of self­doubt and ately after the end of World War II to “I also learned about racism. Most argued that Western liberalism had tri­ Food: Malaysian, Sichuan and Indi­ weakening influence in the world, parents who were members of the Brit­ white liberals see it almost as an intel­ umphed over other systems. an cuisines which I think is now widely recog­ ish Communist Party. lectual construct but it is never at the “I like Francis. He is a very interest­ nized. You cannot say the referendum After studying at Manchester Uni­ forefront of your mind.” ing man. He, however, got that cata­ (on EU membership) in the UK was a versity, where he took a first class hon­ The book, which took almost eight strophically wrong.” great experiment in democracy and ors in economics, he was one of the years to write, predicted China would Jacques’ views, particularly after the you have got countries like Italy which youngest­ever executive members of become a bigger economy than the Party congress, are, however, now on have been frozen for more than 10 the party in the UK at 22. United States by 2027. the ascendant. His Ted Talk video years because its party system is He was very much in the European It also argued that China’s govern­ alone has attracted 2.4 million views. unstable.” Communist tradition of Antonio ance system was an effective alterna­ “ Most people in the West could not The British journalist sees China as Gramsci than the faction of the party tive to Western liberal democracy and conceive of the West not occupying the having moved into a new historical that remained admirers of the former represented a new form of modernity. position of dominance it has for the period of its own after the election of Xi Soviet Union. It also introduced the concept for the past 200 years. as general secretary of the Central Jacques rose to prominence as edi­ first time to many Western readers “I am a historian professionally and Committee of the CPC in November tor of Marxism Today for 14 years from that China was more a civilization you get great periods of change 2012. the late 1970s onwards. state than a nation state. throughout history and this, in my “He has been successful in broaden­ He turned it from an obscure left­ “China’s view of itself was tian xia, view, is one.”