From Follower To Leader: The Story Of China’s Rise

[Music] so [Music] china's rise from 1978 took place in a relatively stable international environment and at the core of this was the relatively benign relationship between the united states and china there were two fundamental assumptions that underpinned america's attitude towards china over this period the first was that china was so far behind economically that it was virtually impossible to imagine uh china becoming an economic challenger or threat to american economic ascendancy in the world and the second factor and i think more important factor was that the american belief was that as china modernized it was it would westernize because remember the american attitude fundamentally was that the process of modernization was also a process of westernization so the american assumption was that over time china would become increasingly look like a western country look like the united states have for example centrally a western-style political system and so this was the other aspect and the the americans took it for granted that if this didn't happen then china's rise would come to an end hit a wall be unsustainable now what began to undermine these two american assumptions about china really starts with the financial crisis western financial crisis in 2008. this was the beginning of the turning point now this was completely unexpected america had not experienced the financial crisis like this since 1931 and america was in big trouble the west was in big trouble during this period and to be frank it's never really recovered its growth rates are still have been until the pandemic which is a different story have still have been very low interest rates have been extremely low to some extent the western economy has been on a life support system meanwhile china has been in a completely different situation during this period i mean china was of course affected by it but basically china continued to grow at more or less the same rate as it had before and by 2014 extraordinary china overtook the united states in terms of gdp primary purchasing power according to this measure from the world bank china by this time also on an annual basis was contributing something like one-third was accounting for one-third of global economic growth so you see there's a chasm in the experience on the one hand of the western united states in particular where it all started and on the other hand china but there was something else we must add to this picture and that was remember politics the economic crisis was expected by the west to happen in china it happened in the west the political crisis was expected by the west to happen in china it happened in the west because what happened was that uh there was growing discontent unease dissent anxiety anger in the west about the impact of the financial crisis on people's living standards and so on and you got the rise of growing dissatisfaction particularly amongst traditional working-class people and so on in the states and elsewhere and the rise of what we come came to know as populism so this was a this was a really important moment uh uh which began to undermine the uh situation uh in the west both economically uh and politically and with the consequence that uh there was also because of the contrasting experience on the one hand of the west on the other hand china a growing anxiety in the west and particularly in governing circles but not only in governing circles about the challenge of china china you know our partner as it were since 1972 was seen increasingly as a threat there was growing anxiety there was growing hostility towards china as a result of this and so eventually of course this culminates in the election of trump uh in 2016 as american president but this was not just a matter of the republicans this new attitude of hostility towards china was pretty bipartisan now why couldn't america tolerate the rise of china why does it immediately translate china's rise into the china threat and here we have to i think understand the psychology of an imperial power and the united states in particular you see the americans are extraordinary extraordinary over very long historical period centuries have always kind of been on the rise and since 1945 they've been overwhelmingly the kind of global hegemon the idea that america is number one is part of the american dna it's not just the presidents and the congressmen and so on who believe this this is deeply imbued i think in the average american the americans think their best the americans think they have to be top dogs they're not going to be bossed around by anyone else they're not going to be rivaled by anyone else now of course the reality is rather different historically speaking because no country can ever expect to be number one forever think of china the century of humiliation china was displaced and so was it this was the case with britain and so on and this will be the case with the united states americans america's relative economic decline probably starts around the 18 1980s but the americans have basically been in denial of this even to this day they're largely in denial it would be suicide for an american president to say ah we are in decline and we cannot change that situation we have to accommodate ourselves to a new world well americans are not ready for us for uh this kind of argument so what was the american response to china as a threat essentially the american response uh was an assault against china to to find a way of making china's rise more difficult to prevent china's right rise if possible if not at least obstruct china's rights and so with after trump becomes president you see after a short while the beginning of the trade war and then after the trade war or alongside the trade war the tech war and steadily as the acrimonious and abrasive approach to china developed you see action to be taken against china on all sorts of different fronts i would argue now i think probably it would be appropriate to call the situation that the world is now in and the relationship between the united states and china as a new cold war but we just because we use the term cold war doesn't mean we should confuse or conflate this cold war with the one between the united states and the soviet union there are three fundamental differences between them the first is that the united states and the soviet union lived and occupied two entirely different economic worlds never the twain shall meet they just had two different international systems one belonging to the united states the other to the soviet union now of course this is not the situation with china china is hugely integrated with the global economy indeed i would argue that in some respects it's more integrated with the global economy than is true of the united states i mean take for one thing trade i mean china is a much more important trading nation exporting and importing than the united states now whatever the americans say whatever the trump administration would like to do they will not be able to excise china from the global economy they can go about it but they won't get that far in my view they can't take as it were take china out of the global economy it is simply too important it is too integrated its relations with so many countries around the world are too advanced for that to happen my second point is the soviet union was never an economic peer or equal of the united states at most it had maybe accounted for maybe 60 the size of the american economy probably less probably more like half now you cannot say that of china china already in 2014 as we've seen had overtaken the size of the american economy but measured by primary purchasing power gdp now it is generally expected that within the next few years maybe five years depends partly on the impact of the pandemic that the unit that china will overtake the united states by the other measure of gdp which is in dollar terms and if we extend the time horizon a bit further you'll see the picture of the global economy by roughly 2030. now this might be this is all these figures are obviously projections so they're obviously you know they're not facts but you'll see it gives you some idea that by 2030 china could account this is by ppp gdp ppp could account for one-third of global gdp by which time it will be something like twice the size of the american economy already by this measure by the way it is 20 bigger than the american economy and you'll see also that even when you combine uh the american economy in the eu uh china will uh be larger than them both uh put together so you know the rise of china economically is formidable and it is deeply embedded and it is showing its ability to perform in many different areas including of course technology the third point i would make is that the soviet union made a fundamental mistake in its relationship with the united states and that was the arms race it tried to compete militarily with the united states and it's spent so much money wasted such resources in a disastrous approach china won't make that mistake china won't make that state for two reasons one china doesn't emphasize the military in a way that for example the united states does or the soviet union did and so china's approach is much more the importance the fundamental importance of the economic i think the prospect is that we are looking at this kind of situation we've got now uh the cold war and uh antagonistic relationship between the united states and china for the foreseeable future um and it's impossible to predict how long but you can say or i would argue that the condition for a change in this antagonism depends on a shift in the american position you see the americans are insisting that that they should enjoy sole primacy in the world and this is no longer possible this atmosphere and relationship will change is the moment when the united states comes to the view that it must share primacy in the world with china and that will be the precondition for i think a new turn in the relationship between the united states and china many voices in american leadership have attacked china uh on a number of different all sorts of all sorts of questions all sorts of issues um and uh and i i i will just talk about three here the first is the argument that's come from the trump administration that china's only got to where it is by cheating by copying by bullying american companies and other western companies for tech technology transfer and so on look there is not a single country in the world that has ever gone up the economic uh chain by not borrowing from other countries i mean what did america do when it started to try and industrialize it borrowed very heavily i.e copied i.e stole if you like from german companies and so uh what china's done is absolutely no different in my view from what essentially has been the story of uh uh innovation uh worldwide throughout the industrial uh era so what china's doing is not different from what it's been doing essentially since 1978 the difference is this that china is now far stronger far more advanced than it was than it was previously and the the american criticism of china are not because they're doing something different it's because they've gone they've traveled a long way and now a very serious competitor uh for uh the united states now of course we see the trade war the tech war let me just say something briefly about the trade war on the track the the the tech well fundamentally the trade war is not going to work i mean it's going to damage china but it's probably going to damage the united states more than it damages china it damage the rest of the world as well by the way but essentially i think probably the biggest sufferer of the two will be the united states or take the tech war actually this is going to fail of gain it's causing damage to china it's caused damage to huawei particularly on the issue of chips but it's not going to succeed because china's innovative energy innovative potential dynamic is just too strong now it is it and and quite frankly uh i expect uh over the next 10 years to see china becoming uh the the technological leader in many many new areas compared with the united states now this brings me to my second point and i think one of the most depressing in fact one of the most disgraceful episodes in western attitudes towards china was to do with the pandemic kovid 19. i mean in january china was struggling to understand what the pandemic was to identify it and to work out how to deal with it and the west particularly the americans but not only the americans my own country britain for sure attacked relentlessly attacked china you know cover-up uh you secrecy you're not telling us the truth you're covering up uh the survival of the government mata the party matters more than the survival of people and so these were the kind of arguments that were dredged up this was the situation where china was struggling in great great difficulty remember china was the first to tackle the question of covert 19. now and you can see that actually china's performance on kovid19 certainly from late january was brilliant was brilliant i mean these figures here are on the basis per capita the number of deaths per capita look at china the strongest probably the strongest performers of any country in the world even though it had to tackle kovid 19 before anyone else and all those great critics the united states and other western countries my own united kingdom and so on who could not stop themselves attacking china showed no compassion in january have had those two extra months to deal with it could have learned from china and look at them a miserable performance and i would say this as in addition that the pandemic has been perhaps above all a test of governance and without question china has come through this fundamentally with flying colors and the united states has been proven under the trump leadership but i think unfortunately more general generally to be to have been incompetent and the fact that china's now coming out of the uh pandemic of course has created uh uh uh major economic opportunities there's only one country of this list here that is going to have positive growth in terms of gdp in 2020 and that is china everyone else look at that minus eight percent is these are imf projections eight percent uh decline uh for uh the united states uh ten percent uh for uh the uk uh and so on my last point is this it's about the critic criticism of china that it doesn't uh observe the rule of law that it doesn't observe the norms of the international system and so on this has been the you find this kind of criticism very frequently and i think we need to be clear about certain things here first point china had no say in the present rules and norms of the international system they were all uh developed by the united states and western europe so china was not a party to the international system never the president international system nevertheless china has since as it with its growth and its rise has been a very good global citizen in the un in the wto in the imf in the world bank china has played a very positive role and china has always been very generous in its praise for the international system and the way it has been a beneficiary of that system let me just say something else as well here you know since china's rise started in 1978 china has not really been involved in any wars whatsoever this is the period of china's great rise great transformation from nothing to now being equal uh with the most powerful country in the world economically now look at american history or german history or british history or japanese history all of these countries were involved in many wars during the equivalent period of their historical development china in other words has exercised extraordinary restraint during this period of its development now i would say this and that is i don't believe the present international system can survive for a long time and the reason is quite simply this we live in a completely different world a rapidly transfer changing world in 1980 the center of the global economy was here and then slowly in the subsequent 30-odd years it shifted you can see it shifting here and today it's somewhere about here that's the center of the global economy in those days the global economy was essentially western europe and the united states by 2050 it'll be here basically on the indian china border there's no way you can have an international system which is controlled by essentially and privileges the united states and western europe when actually the center of the action is over here you need a different kind of global economy a a different kind of global order for that uh for that kind of situation and i would say this in relationship to this uh to this new international system first of all at the heart of it will be china 18 of the world's population at the heart of the present international system is the united states just 4.3 of the world's population secondly this increasingly what we're witnessing is the rise of the developing world and the decline of uh the developed world today it's something like this 39 of the global economy is accounted for by the developed world uh 61 is accounted for by the developing world by 2030 it'll be something like this it should be the western world plus japan and this will be the developing world in the developing world 85 something like 85 percent of the world's population live in this part of the world less than 15 in other words we're talking about an international system which we far more representative of humanity than it is now in other words we're moving from an essentially authoritarian minori not minoritarian system of global governments to something which is far more representative of the world as it is as as it is already and as it will be even more so uh in uh the future so i that i see china's role as uh extreme essentially very positive uh in terms of the future i think there's something else that needs to be said here and that is that the rise of china not just china the rise of the developing world as well of which china of course is part is creating a big crisis in the west i i would call it the existential crisis of the west because for 200 years the west has run the world has assumed that the world is its world has been at the heart of all the all the major institutions which it has designed the assumption that its people will run the world that it's language and now english will dominate that the people who run the world by and large will be white this era is coming to an end this era is no longer sustainable it's not just the rise of china it's the rise of the developing world as well and you're experiencing in the west now a backlash against this process and this change is not just happening in the united states it's a global change it's the rise of different peoples different colors different languages different cultures different civilizations i like the chinese expression inclusive civilization but the west has got no idea how to embrace that so this is a very important aspect of what we're talking about and i'll just finish by saying this look i regard china's rise to be extraordinarily positive now it doesn't mean that china doesn't make mistakes hasn't made mistakes won't make mistakes in the future of course it will it's on a learning curve it's only just really beginning to be a great power but china is a very good learner we can all see that thank you

Channel: Martin Jacques

Views: 497,201

Rating: 4.8077846 out of 5

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Id: Psyy4KqEKtA

Length: 27min 30sec (1650 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/bluehat10]

The inevitable coming shift of power from the West to the rest of the World, especially China. The West kicking and screaming will not survive the coming sea change.

[u/bluehat10]

New zealander comment under the video :

China has traded with Malaysia for 2000 years. In those years, they had been the world’s biggest powers many times. Never once they sent troops to take our land. Admiral Zhenghe came to Malacca five times, in gigantic fleets, and a flagship eight times the size of Christopher Columbus’ flagship, Santa Maria. He could have seized Malacca easily, but he did not. In 1511, the Portuguese came. In 1642, the Dutch came. In the 18th century the British came. We were colonised by each, one after another. When China wanted spices from India, they traded with the Indians. When they wanted gems, they traded with the Persian. They didn’t take lands. The only time China expanded beyond their current borders was in Yuan Dynasty, when Genghis and his descendants Ogedei Khan, Guyuk Khan & Kublai Khan concurred China, Mid Asia and Eastern Europe. But Yuan Dynasty, although being based in China, was a part of the Mongolian Empire. Then came the Century of Humiliation. Britain smuggled opium into China to dope the population, a strategy to turn the trade deficit around, after the British could not find enough silver to pay the Qing Dynasty in their tea and porcelain trades. After the opium warehouses were burned down and ports were closed by the Chinese in ordered to curb opium, the British started the Opium War I, which China lost. Hong Kong was forced to be surrendered to the British in a peace talk (Nanjing Treaty). The British owned 90% of the opium market in China, during that time, Queen Victoria was the world’s biggest drug baron. The remaining 10% was owned by American merchants from Boston. Many of Boston’s institutions were built with profit from opium. After 12 years of Nanjing Treaty, the West started getting really really greedy. The British wanted the Qing government: 1. To open the borders of China to allow goods coming in and out freely, and tax free. 2. Make opium legal in China. Insane requests, Qing government said no. The British and French, with supports from the US and Russia from behind, started Opium War II with China, which again, China lost. The Anglo-French military raided the Summer Palace, and threatened to burn down the Imperial Palace, the Qing government was forced to pay with ports, free business zones, 300,000 kilograms of silver and Kowloon was taken. Since then, China’s resources flew out freely through these business zones and ports. In the subsequent amendment to the treaties, Chinese people were sold overseas to serve as labor. In 1900, China suffered attacks by the 8-National Alliance(Japan, Russia, Britain, France, USA, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary). Innocent Chinese civilians in Peking (Beijing now) were murdered, buildings were destroyed & women were raped. The Imperial Palace was raided, and treasures ended up in museums like the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris. In late 1930s China was occupied by the Japanese in WWII. Millions of Chinese died during the occupancy. 300,000 Chinese died in Nanjing Massacre alone. Mao brought China together again from the shambles. There were peace and unity for some time. But Mao’s later reign saw sufferings and deaths from famine and power struggles. Then came Deng Xiao Ping and his infamous “black-cat and white-cat” story. His preference in pragmatism than ideologies has transformed China. This thinking allowed China to evolve all the time to adapt to the actual needs in the country, instead of rigidly bounded to ideologies. It also signified the death of Communism in actually practice in China. The current Socialism+Meritocracy+Market Economy model fits the Chinese like gloves, and it propels the uprise of China. Singapore has a similar model, and has been arguably more successful than Hong Kong, because Hong Kong being gateway to China, was riding on the economic boom in China, while Singapore had no one to gain from. In just 30 years, the CPC have moved 800 millions of people out from poverty. The rate of growth is unprecedented in human history. They have built the biggest mobile network, by far the biggest high speed rail network in the world, and they have become a behemoth in infrastructure. They made a fishing village called Shenzhen into the world’s second largest technological centre after the Silicon Valley. They are growing into a technological power house. It has the most elaborate e-commerce and cashless payment system in the world. They have launched exploration to Mars. The Chinese are living a good life and China has become one of the safest countries in the world. The level of patriotism in the country has reached an unprecedented height. For all of the achievements, the West has nothing good to say about it. China suffers from intense anti-China propagandas from the West. Western Media used the keyword “Communist” to instil fear and hatred towards China. Everything China does is negatively reported. They claimed China used slave labor in making iPhones. The truth was, Apple was the most profitable company in the world, it took most of the profit, leave some to Foxconn (a Taiwanese company) and little to the labor. They claimed China was inhuman with one-child policy. At the same time, they accused China of polluting the earth with its huge population. The fact is the Chinese consume just 30% of energy per capita compared to the US. They claimed China underwent ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang. The fact is China has a policy which priorities ethnic minorities. For a long time, the ethnic minorities were allowed to have two children and the majority Han only allowed one. The minorities are allowed a lower score for university intakes. There are 39,000 mosque in China, and 2100 in the US. China has about 3 times more mosque per muslim than the US. When terrorist attacks happened in Xinjiang, China had two choices: 1. Re-educate the Uighur extremists before they turned terrorists. 2. Let them be, after they launch attacks and killed innocent people, bomb their homes. China chose 1 to solve problem from the root and not to do killing. How the US solve terrorism? Fire missiles from battleships, drop bombs from the sky. During the pandemic, When China took extreme measures to lockdown the people, they were accused of being inhuman. When China recovered swiftly because of the extreme measures, they were accused of lying about the actual numbers. When China’s cases became so low that they could provide medical support to other countries, they were accused of politically motivated. Western Media always have reasons to bash China. Just like any country, there are irresponsible individuals from China which do bad and dirty things, but the China government overall has done very well. But I hear this comment over and over by people from the West: I like Chinese people, but the CPC is evil. What they really want is the Chinese to change the government, because the current one is too good. Fortunately China is not a multi-party democratic country, otherwise the opposition party in China will be supported by notorious NGOs (Non-Government Organization) of the USA, like the NED (National Endowment for Democracy), to topple the ruling party. The US and the British couldn’t crack Mainland China, so they work on Hong Kong. Of all the ex-British colonial countries, only the Hong Kongers were offered BNOs by the British. Because the UK would like the Hong Kongers to think they are British citizens, not Chinese. A divide-and-conquer strategy, which they often used in Color Revolutions around the world. They resort to low dirty tricks like detaining Huawei’s CFO & banning Huawei. They raised a silly trade war which benefits no one. Trade deficit always exist between a developing and a developed country. USA is like a luxury car seller who ask a farmer: why am I always buying your vegetables and you haven’t bought any of my cars? When the Chinese were making socks for the world 30 years ago, the world let it be. But when Chinese started to make high technology products, like Huawei and DJI, it caused red-alert. Because when Western and Japanese products are equal to Chinese in technologies, they could never match the Chinese in prices. First world countries want China to continue in making socks. Instead of stepping up themselves, they want to pull China down. The recent movement by the US against China has a very important background. When Libya, Iran, and China decided to ditch the US dollar in oil trades, Gaddafi’s was killed by the US, Iran was being sanctioned by the US, and now it’s China’s turn. The US has been printing money out of nothing. The only reason why the US Dollar is still widely accepted, is because it’s the only currency which oil is allowed to be traded with. The US has an agreement with Saudi that oil must be traded in US dollar ONLY. Without the petrol-dollar status, the US dollars will sink, and America will fall. Therefore anyone trying to disobey this order will be eliminated. China will soon use a gold-backed crypto-currency, the alarms in the White House go off like mad. China’s achievement has been by hard work. Not buy looting the world. I have deep sympathy for China for all the suffering, but now I feel happy for them. China is not rising, they are going back to where they belong. Good luck China.Love from NZShow less