By Matt Mulley - 22nd October 2009
China will not develop in the same way as Western democracies, a parliamentary group has been told.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on China met on Tuesday evening to hear Martin Jacques explain the ideas behind his recently-published book When China Rules the World.
Jacques challenges the western conception of modernity, arguing that while China's modernisation may look technologically similar to that of the West, it will in fact grow into a very different creature.
The West's view of China, says Jacques, is perennially tainted by the assumption that the pattern of economic growth and global influence by which Western countries developed during the 19th and 20th centuries is the 'right' way.
China may well develop universal suffrage and a form of multi-party politics, but as the products of millennia of unique social and cultural history they will not be what the West expects, or perhaps even understands.
What is not in doubt is China's rapid growth, and the potential for that growth to continue exponentially.
China's economy is already larger than that of the whole of the EU, and projections show that by 2025 it will be on equal terms with the US.
Jacques is an unashamed Sinophile and his analysis, though compelling, nevertheless skirts some of the less savoury aspects of an authoritarian regime. His mix of examination and aspiration throws up some contradictions.
He never quite resolves the dichotomy between what he describes as the 'under-appreciated plurality the Chinese people' and its evident homogeneity; of its 1.3bn population 92 per cent describe themselves as ethnically Han.
He describes the history of China as a 'civilisation state' which throughout its history has followed an 'inherent process of racial and historical assimilation.'
And yet he lauds the 'one nation, two systems' approach to Hong Kong by the Chinese Government as a model for future settlements with Taiwan and Tibet.
Nobody can ignore the rise of China as an economic superpower, but Jacques argues that the terms of our understanding must change if we are to engage with it in any meaningful way.
China will learn and borrow from the Western process of modernisation, but it will never be the same.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd