Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China
The world is changing with really remarkable speed. If you look at the chart at the top here, you'll see that in 2025, these Goldman Sachs projections suggest that the Chinese economy will be almost the same size as the American economy. And if you look at the chart for 2050, it's projected that the Chinese economy will be twice the size of the American economy, and the Indian economy will be almost the same size as the American economy. And we should bear in mind here that these projections were drawn up before the Western financial crisis.
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at the latest projection by BNP Paribas for when China will have a larger economy than the United States. Goldman Sachs projected 2027. The post-crisis projection is 2020. That's just a decade away. China is going to change the world in two fundamental respects. First of all, it's a huge developing country with a population of 1.3 billion people, which has been growing for over 30 years at around 10 percent a year.
And within a decade, it will have the largest economy in the world. Never before in the modern era has the largest economy in the world been that of a developing country, rather than a developed country. Secondly, for the first time in the modern era, the dominant country in the world -- which I think is what China will become -- will be not from the West and from very, very different civilizational roots.
Now I know it's a widespread assumption in the West that, as countries modernize, they also Westernize. This is an illusion. It's an assumption that modernity is a product simply of competition, markets and technology. It is not; it is also shaped equally by history and culture. China is not like the West, and it will not become like the West. It will remain in very fundamental respects very different. Now the big question here is obviously, how do we make sense of China? How do we try to understand what China is? And the problem we have in the West at the moment by-and-large is that the conventional approach is that we understand it really in Western terms, using Western ideas. We can't. Now I want to offer you three building blocks for trying to understand what China is like -- just as a beginning.
The first is this, that China is not really a nation state. Okay, it's called itself a nation state for the last hundred years. But everyone who knows anything about China knows it's a lot older than this. This was what China looked like with the victory of the Qin Dynasty in 221 B.C. at the end of the warring state period -- the birth of modern China. And you can see it against the boundaries of modern China. Or immediately afterward, the Han Dynasty, still 2,000 years ago. And you can see already it occupies most of what we now know as Eastern China, which is where the vast majority of Chinese lived then and live now.
Now what is extraordinary about this is, what gives China it's sense of being China, what gives the Chinese the sense of what it is to be Chinese, comes not from the last hundred years, not from the nation state period, which is what happened in the West, but from the period, if you like, of the civilization state. I'm thinking here, for example, of customs like ancestral worship, of a very distinctive notion of the state, likewise, a very distinctive notion of the family, social relationships like guanxi, Confucian values and so on. These are all things that come from the period of the civilization state. In other words, China, unlike the Western states and most countries in the world, is shaped by its sense of civilization, its existence as a civilization state, rather than as a nation state. And there's one other thing to add to this, and that is this: Of course we know China's big, huge, demographically and geographically, with a population of 1.3 billion people. What we often aren't really aware of is the fact that China is extremely diverse and very pluralistic, and in many ways very decentralized. You can't run a place on this scale simply from Beijing, even though we think this to be the case. It's never been the case.
So this is China, a civilization state, rather than a nation state. And what does it mean? Well I think it has all sorts of profound implications. I'll give you two quick ones. The first is that the most important political value for the Chinese is unity, is the maintenance of Chinese civilization. You know, 2,000 years ago, Europe: breakdown, the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire [Roman Empire]. It divided, and it's remained divided ever since. China, over the same time period, went in exactly the opposite direction, very painfully holding this huge civilization, civilization state together.
The second is maybe more prosaic, which is Hong Kong. Do you remember the handover of Hong Kong by Britain to China in 1997? You may remember what the Chinese constitutional proposition was. One country, two systems. And I'll lay a wager that barely anyone in the West believed them. "Window dressing. When China gets it's hands on Hong Kong, that won't be the case." 13 years on, the political and legal system in Hong Kong is as different now as it was in 1997. We were wrong. Why were we wrong? We were wrong because we thought, naturally enough, in nation state ways. Think of German unification, 1990. What happened? Well, basically the East was swallowed by the West. One nation, one system. That is the nation state mentality. But you can't run a country like China, a civilization state, on the basis of one civilization, one system. It doesn't work. So actually the response of China to the question of Hong Kong -- as it will be to the question of Taiwan -- was a natural response: one civilization, many systems.
Let me offer you another building block to try and understand China -- maybe not such a comfortable one. The Chinese have a very, very different conception of race to most other countries. Do you know, of the 1.3 billion Chinese, over 90 percent of them think they belong to the same race, the Han. Now this is completely different from the other world's most populous countries. India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil -- all of them are multiracial. The Chinese don't feel like that. China is only multiracial really at the margins. So the question is, why? Well the reason, I think, essentially is, again, back to the civilization state. A history of at least 2,000 years, a history of conquest, occupation, absorption, assimilation and so on, led to the process by which, over time, this notion of the Han emerged -- of course, nurtured by a growing and very powerful sense of cultural identity.
Now the great advantage of this historical experience has been that, without the Han, China could never have held together. The Han identity has been the cement which has held this country together. The great disadvantage of it is that the Han have a very weak conception of cultural difference. They really believe in their own superiority, and they are disrespectful of those who are not. Hence their attitude, for example, to the Uyghurs and to the Tibetans.
Or let me give you my third building block, the Chinese state. Now the relationship between the state and society in China is very different from that in the West. Now we in the West overwhelmingly seem to think -- in these days at least -- that the authority and legitimacy of the state is a function of democracy. The problem with this proposition is that the Chinese state enjoys more legitimacy and more authority amongst the Chinese than is true with any Western state. And the reason for this is because -- well, there are two reasons, I think. And it's obviously got nothing to do with democracy, because in our terms the Chinese certainly don't have a democracy. And the reason for this is, firstly, because the state in China is given a very special -- it enjoys a very special significance as the representative, the embodiment and the guardian of Chinese civilization, of the civilization state. This is as close as China gets to a kind of spiritual role.
And the second reason is because, whereas in Europe and North America, the state's power is continuously challenged -- I mean in the European tradition, historically against the church, against other sectors of the aristocracy, against merchants and so on -- for 1,000 years, the power of the Chinese state has not been challenged. It's had no serious rivals. So you can see that the way in which power has been constructed in China is very different from our experience in Western history. The result, by the way, is that the Chinese have a very different view of the state. Whereas we tend to view it as an intruder, a stranger, certainly an organ whose powers need to be limited or defined and constrained, the Chinese don't see the state like that at all. The Chinese view the state as an intimate -- not just as an intimate actually, as a member of the family -- not just in fact as a member of the family, but as the head of the family, the patriarch of the family. This is the Chinese view of the state -- very, very different to ours. It's embedded in society in a different kind of way to what is the case in the West.
And I would suggest to you that actually what we are dealing with here, in the Chinese context, is a new kind of paradigm, which is different from anything we've had to think about in the past. Know that China believes in the market and the state. I mean, Adam Smith, already writing in the late 18th century said, "The Chinese market is larger and more developed and more sophisticated than anything in Europe." And, apart from the Mao period, that has remained more-or-less the case ever since. But this is combined with an extremely strong and ubiquitous state. The state is everywhere in China. I mean, it's leading firms, many of them are still publicly owned. Private firms, however large they are, like Lenovo, depend in many ways on state patronage. Targets for the economy and so on are set by the state. And the state, of course, its authority flows into lots of other areas -- as we are familiar with -- with something like the the one-child policy.
Moreover, this is a very old state tradition, a very old tradition of statecraft. I mean, if you want an illustration of this, the Great Wall is one. But this is another, this is the Grand Canal, which was constructed in the first instance in the fifth century B.C. and was finally completed in the seventh century A.D. It went for 1,114 miles, linking Beijing with Hangzhou and Shanghai. So there's a long history of extraordinary state infrastructural projects in China, which I suppose helps us to explain what we see today, which is something like the Three Gorges Dam and many other expressions of state competence within China. So there we have three building blocks for trying to to understand the difference that is China -- the civilization state, the notion of race and the nature of the state and its relationship to society.
And yet we still insist, by-and-large, in thinking that we can understand China by simply drawing on Western experience, looking at it through Western eyes, using Western concepts. If you want to know why we unerringly seem to get China wrong -- our predictions about what's going to happen to China are incorrect -- this is the reason. Unfortunately I think, I have to say that I think attitude towards China is that of a kind of little Westerner mentality. It's kind of arrogant. It's arrogant in the sense that we think that we are best, and therefore we have the universal measure. And secondly, it's ignorant. We refuse to really address the issue of difference. You know, there's a very interesting passage in a book by Paul Cohen, the American historian. And Paul Cohen argues that the West thinks of itself as probably the most cosmopolitan of all cultures. But it's not. In many ways, it's the most parochial, because for 200 years, the West has been so dominant in the world that it's not really needed to understand other cultures, other civilizations. Because, at the end of the day, it could, if necessary by force, get its own way. Whereas those cultures -- virtually the rest of the world, in fact -- which have been in a far weaker position, vis-a-vis the West, have been thereby forced to understand the West, because of the West's presence in those societies. And therefore, they are, as a result, more cosmopolitan in many ways than the West.
I mean, take the question of East Asia. East Asia: Japan, Korea, China, etc. -- a third of the world's population lives there, now the largest economic region in the world. And I'll tell you now, that East Asianers, people from East Asia, are far more knowledgeable about the West than the West is about East Asia. Now this point is very germane, I'm afraid, to the present. Because what's happening? Back to that chart at the beginning -- the Goldman Sachs chart. What is happening is that, very rapidly in historical terms, the world is being driven and shaped, not by the old developed countries, but by the developing world. We've seen this in terms of the G20 -- usurping very rapidly the position of the G7, or the G8. And there are two consequences of this. First, the West is rapidly losing its influence in the world. There was a dramatic illustration of this actually a year ago -- Copenhagen, climate change conference. Europe was not at the final negotiating table. When did that last happen? I would wager it was probably about 200 years ago. And that is what is going to happen in the future.
And the second implication is that the world will inevitably, as a consequence, become increasingly unfamiliar to us, because it'll be shaped by cultures and experiences and histories that we are not really familiar with, or conversant with. And at last, I'm afraid -- take Europe, America is slightly different -- but Europeans by and large, I have to say, are ignorant, are unaware about the way the world is changing. Some people -- I've got an English friend in China, and he said, "The continent is sleepwalking into oblivion." Well, maybe that's true, maybe that's an exaggeration. But there's another problem which goes along with this -- that Europe is increasingly out of touch with the world -- and that is a sort of loss of a sense of the future. I mean, Europe once, of course, once commanded the future in it's confidence. Take the 19th century for example. But this, alas, is no longer true.
If you want to feel the future, if you want to taste the future, try China -- there's old Confucius. This is a railway station the like of which you've never seen before. It doesn't even look like a railway station. This is the new Guangzhou railway station for the high-speed trains. China already has a bigger network than any other country in the world and will soon have more than all the rest of the world put together. Or take this: Now this is an idea, but it's an idea to by tried out shortly in a suburb of Beijing. Here you have a megabus, on the upper deck carries about 2,000 people. It travels on rails down a suburban road, and the cars travel underneath it. And it does speeds of up to about 100 miles an hour. Now this is the way things are going to move, because China has a very specific problem, which is different from Europe and different from the United States. China has huge numbers of people and no space. So this is a solution to a situation where China's going to have many, many, many cities over 20 million people.
Okay, so how would I like to finish? Well, what should our attitude be towards this world that we see very rapidly developing before us? I think there will be good things about it and there will be bad things about it. But I want to argue, above all, a big picture positive for this world. For 200 years, the world was essentially governed by a fragment of the human population. That's what Europe and North America represented. The arrival of countries like China and India -- between them 38 percent of the world's population -- and others like Indonesia and Brazil and so on, represent the most important single act of democratization in the last 200 years. Civilizations and cultures, which had been ignored, which had no voice, which were not listened to, which were not known about, will have a different sort of representation in this world. As humanists, we must welcome, surely, this transformation. And we will have to learn about these civilizations.
This big ship here was the one sailed in by Zheng He in the early 15th century on his great voyages around the South China Sea, the East China Sea and across the Indian Ocean to East Africa. The little boat in front of it was the one in which, 80 years later, Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic. (Laughter) Or, look carefully at this silk scroll made by ZhuZhou in 1368. I think they're playing golf. Christ, the Chinese even invented golf.
Welcome to the future. Thank you.
(Applause)
这世界正在以飞快的速度发生着改变。如果你看这上面的图表，你会发现在2025年，据高盛的预测显示，中国经济体的规模几乎会与美国的一样大。如果你来看这张2050年的图表，它预测届时中国经济体的规模将是美国的两倍，而印度经济体规模将与美国相近。我们应该注意的是，这些预测是在西方金融危机发生之前做出的。几周前，我在看法国巴黎银行做出的关于中国的经济体规模何时超越美国的最新预测。高盛当时的预测是2027年。而这份诞生于危机之后的报告的预测年份则是2020年。这就是十年之后的事情了。
中国将要从两个最基本的方面改变世界。首先，它是一个有着13亿人口的庞大的发展中国家，并已经以每年10%的经济增长速度腾飞了30多年。而且在十年之内，它将会是世界最大的经济体。在现代史上，还从未有过一个发展中国家，而不是发达国家，成为世界上最大的经济体。第二，也是现代史上的第一次，世界上处主导地位的国家——我认为中国将居主导地位——不来自西方，而是来自于一个完全不同的文化根基。我知道现在在西方有一个非常流行的观点，即认为国家的现代化等同于西方化。这是一个谬误。这种观点错误地认为现代化仅单纯是竞争、市场和技术的产物。它不是。它同样是历史和文化所塑造的平等。中国不像西方国家，也永远不会与之趋同。它会在很多基本的方面保持不同。现在最大的问题显然是：我们应该怎么读懂中国？怎样试着理解中国的现状？而总体来说现在西方存在的问题是我们习惯用传统的西方模式和思维来理解它。我们不能这样。
“三个基础理解中国：文明国邦，而非民族国家；汉民族为主体；家长式的政府管理”
现在，我希望提供给大家三个认识基础，来理解中国的崛起，就像开始时一样。第一个，中国并不是一个民族国家(nation state)。虽然它在过去的几百年内声称自己是民族国家，但是对中国历史稍有了解的人都知道它的历史远长于此。这是公元前221年秦在战国末期统一中国时的版图，即现代中国的滥觞，你可以看到它与现代中国版图的差别。再看不久后的汉朝，也是2000年之前，它的疆域基本覆盖了现在中国的东部地区，那也是自古以来人口的主要聚居地。非常奇怪的一点是，真正给中国民族感的，真正给中国人身份认同感的，并不像西方那样来自于近几百年民族国家的阶段，而是来源于文明国邦（civilization state）（如果可以这样说）的那段历史。具体包括祖先崇拜的习俗，对国家的不同观念，同样地像对家庭的不同观念，社会上的“关系”，儒家价值观念等这些例子，这些都是从文明国家的阶段形成的。换句话说，不同于西方国家和其他绝大多数国家，中国是因其对文明的归属感，因其文明国家而非民族国家的历史的存在而存在的。还有一点要补充：我们当然知道不管从地理上还是人口上来说中国都是一个庞大的国家，有着十三亿人口。但是我们常常忽略了一点：中国同样非常的多样与多元，且在很多方面非常的分散。你不能坐居北京而治理一个如此大的国家——即使我们就是这样认为的。但是事实并非如此。
所以，这就是中国，一个文明国邦，而非民族国家。这意味着什么？我认为这有太多深远的隐义。我可以快速告诉你两点。首先，对中国人来说，最重要的政治观念就是团结，是中华文明的维护。2000年前，欧洲崩塌了，神圣罗马帝国分裂了，并从此以后一直四分五裂。而中国，在几乎相同的时期却走上与欧洲截然相反的道路，艰难地将这庞大的文明体凝聚在一起。第二个可能更能反映事实，就是香港。你还记得1997年时香港从英国到中国手上的交接吗？你可能记得中国就此的宪政理论：一国两制。而且我打赌几乎不会有任何西方人认为这能行得通。“只是种噱头。当香港真的交到中国手上时，事情不会是那样。”13年过去了，香港的政治体制与司法体制同1997年时一样保持着独立性。我们错了。我们为什么会错？因为我们想当然地从民族国家的角度来考虑。想想1990年时德国的统一。可以说东德被西德侵吞了，一个国家，一种体制。这是民族国家的思想方式。但是你不能在一种文明、一种体制的基础上来管理像中国这样的文明国邦。这不管用。所以中国对香港问题的解答——这也将是它对台湾问题的解答——是一个自然的回应：一种文明，多种政体。
让我给你第二个试着了解中国的基础吧——尽管也许并不太合适。相比其他国家，中国人有着非常不同的民族概念。你知道吗，在13亿人口中，超过90%的人口属于同一个民族——汉族。这与世界上其他人口大国截然不同。印度、美国、印尼、巴西——它们都是多民族国家。中国人自己并不想要这样。但中国的其他民族人数仅仅是少数。那么问题就是，为什么呢？我觉得，这原因很大程度上仍旧应归咎于它是个文明国邦。一个至少2000年的历史，一个充满征服、占有、吸收、同化等的历史，使得汉民族的观念在这过程中产生，并被不断成长和壮大的文化归属感所滋养。
这种历史经验的好处就在于中国想要凝聚起来，必须依靠汉族。汉民族的身份认同感如水泥般将这个国家聚合起来。而这点的缺点则是汉族人文化差异的观念很淡薄。他们沉浸于自己的优越感，并且轻视其他民族的人。这就不难解释他们对例如维吾尔族、藏族人的态度了。
那么让我给你第三个基础吧：中国的政府（state）。在中国，政府与社会的关系与西方有很大的不同。现在西方人普遍认为——至少是目前——政府的权威性与合法性来源于民主的运作。这个命题的问题在于中国的政府比任何西方政府在自己国民之间都享有更多的合法性与权威性。原因是……我认为有两个原因，且显然这和民主没有什么关系，因为在我们看来中国人并不拥有一个民主政体。首先，中国的政府被赋予了一个非常……它作为国民的代表，作为中华文化及文明国邦的体现与捍卫者，具有非同寻常的重要性。这差不多成为一种精神代表。第二个原因是，与在欧洲和北美，政府的权威总是持续地受到挑战不同——欧洲历史上，政府与教会、与世俗贵族势力、与商人斗争中力量的此消彼长——在一千年间，中国政府的权威几乎没有被挑战过。它并没有遇到强敌。所以你可以发现中国权力结构的构建与西方历史经验有很大的不同。于是，这样的结果就是中国人有非常不同的政府观。即使我们常常将中国政府视为侵入者、陌生者、一个权力需要被限制甚至压抑的怪物，中国人自己并不这样看他们的政府。中国人将政府视为亲切的——甚至不仅是亲切的，而是像他们家庭成员一样亲密的——又不仅仅是家庭成员，而是家庭的管理者，是最大的“家长”。这就是中国人对政府的观念——和我们的非常不同。它以一种与西方大相径庭的方式烙印在中国社会当中。
我想提醒你我们现在是在一个中国文化背景下思考问题，是一个全新的范式，不同于以往我们所谈论过的所有。要知道中国同样相信市场和政府，亚当·斯密在18世纪就已经写到：“中国的市场比欧洲任何地方都更大、更发达且更复杂。”除了在毛泽东时期，这在很大程度上就是事实。但这是在一个极其强大且无所不在的政府的管理下的。政府的影响在中国无处不在。中国的龙头企业大多数依旧是公有的。私营企业，无论它们有多庞大，像联想，也依旧在很多方面依仗政府的支持。经济发展的目标由政府制定。政府的控制力渗透入许多领域，比如我们所熟悉的计划生育政策。
再者，政府一直有（修建大型基础工程）的悠久传统，这是一个自古以来的治国要领。如果你想要一个例子，万里长城的修建就是。还有另一个例子，大运河，始建于公元前5世纪，完工于公元17世纪。它总长1114英里，将北京与上海、杭州相连。中国政府大兴重大基础设施是自古就有的，这就帮助我们理解三峡大坝及其他展现国力的工程修建的原因。所以我们现在已经有三个助于我们理解中国的差异性的认识基础了：文明国邦、关于民族的概念、政府的性质及其与社会的关系。
“西方文化可能是狭隘的，而东方文化更具普世性”
但是总的来说，我们依旧执意认为我们能够靠西方的经验、从西方的视角、运用西方的观念来读懂中国。如果你想知道为什么我们总是理解错中国——我们对中国发展的预测总是错误——那这就是原因。我必须说我认为不幸的是，我们对中国的态度有些过于偏向西方思维，有些傲慢。这种傲慢是因为我们认为自己是最好的，我们掌握着普世的裁判权。二者，有些无知。我们拒绝涉及差异这一领域的问题。在保罗·科恩的《美国的历史学家》一书中有一段非常有趣。保罗·科恩说西方可能将自己的文化看成是所有文化中最普世的了。但它不是。甚至在很多方面，西方文化是狭隘的，因为在西方在200年里都是世界的主导，它不需要去理解其他的文化与文明。因为不管怎样到最后，它可以依靠武力来捍卫自己的文化。然而其他文化——事实上就是世界上其他的部分——处在一个弱势地位，面对西方的强大及其在社会生活中的渗透，这些国家被迫试着去了解西方。因此，这样产生的结果就是，这些文化往往比西方文化更具世界性。
举个例子，东亚问题。东亚：日本、韩朝、中国等，聚集了世界三分之一的人口，也是现在世界上最大的经济区域。而且我要告诉你，东亚人，那些来自于东亚的人，他们了解西方的程度远大于西方了解东亚。这有很现实的意义。恐怕就现在来说。因为现在正在发生什么？让我们回到开头的那张图表——高盛的那张图表。正在切实发生的是就历史学角度来说，世界正在以极快的速度被发展中国家，而非发达国家所驱引与塑造。我们可以看到G20正在迅速地取代G7或G8的地位。
这将导致两个后果。首先，西方正在飞速地失去它对世界的影响力。一年前的哥本哈根气候变化大会就是一个绝佳的例子。欧洲不再是谈判桌上的决定者。这种情景最近一次是在什么时候发生？我打赌那可能是200年之前了。这就是将来将要发生的事。第二个影响就是这个世界对我们来说将不可避免地变得越来越陌生，因为它正在被我们并不了解甚至精通的文化、经历与历史所塑造。最后我恐怕得说说欧洲了（美国稍不一样），我必须说欧洲人总的来说是无知的，是对世界正在发生改变的方式迟钝的。一些人——我有一位在中国的英国朋友说：“这个大洲正在梦游中走向湮没。”或许这是对的，或许这只是个夸张。但是这有另一个问题随之产生：欧洲正在逐渐与世界脱离。而这是一种感知未来的能力的缺失。我的意思是欧洲曾经自信满满地执未来之牛耳。想想19世纪的欧洲吧，而这盛景已不在了。
如果你想要感知未来，如果你想尝尝未来的滋味，试着了解中国吧——那有悠久的儒家文化。这是一个火车站，或许你们从未见过这样的。它甚至不像一个火车站。但这就是广州为高铁建的新火车站。中国已经有了世界最大的铁路网，而且即将超过世界上其他所有国家的总和。或者来看这个：这是一个新创意，但这个创意将很快在北京的一个郊区实施。这是一个巨大的巴士，上层能载2000名乘客。它从铁轨上驶到郊区公路上，机动车可以在它下方行驶。它可以达到每小时100英里。这就是事物发展的方向，因为中国有其自身特有的麻烦，不同于欧洲和美国——中国有太多的人与太少的空间。所以这就是应对将来中国出现更多更多超过2000万人口的城市的解决方案。
怎么结束我的演讲？当我们看到世界在我们眼前急速发展时我们该采取什么样的态度？我想对于我们，这有好的一面，也有不好的一面。但我想强调的是，一个总体来说积极的态度来面对世界。200年间，世界基本上被一小部分人所领导，基本来自欧洲和北美。像中国和印度——占世界人口的38%——还有其他像印尼、巴西等，这些国家的崛起是近200年民主化历程中最重要的篇章。那些被长久忽视的，那些长期没有发出自己声音的，那些没有被好好倾听的，那些鲜为人知的文明与文化将在世界格局中代表完全不同的一股力量。作为人道主义者，我们当然必须欢迎这种巨变。我们也将从这些文明中学习获益。
这艘大船是15世纪时郑和在从南海、东海附近穿越印度洋直达东非的伟大航行中所驾驶的。而这前面的小船则是80年后，克里斯多夫·哥伦布横跨大西洋时驾驶的。（笑声）大家看仔细这个丝制的杆轴，这是1368年时Zhuzhou（不详，应是明朝的画家）画的。我想他们应该是在打高尔夫球吧。上帝啊，竟然是中国人发明了高尔夫！
欢迎来到未来。谢谢。
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