{The macrohistorians used these models to predict major historical changes in economics, power relations and geopolitics. Curiously, none of them predicted that China would emerge as a challenger to US global preeminence.}
{The emergence of China as a global power is less surprising when seen in a historical context. For much of recorded history, including the colonial period, China was the world’s largest economy, rivaled only by India. It was not until the end of the 19th century that the US took the top spot.}
{But few experts could have predicted the speed with which China modernized. The West took two centuries to industrialize, China did it in less than 50 years. In the process, China became the factory of the world and a spider in the web of the global supply chain. Shut down China and much of the world would come to a standstill.
In recent years, China has transitioned from a low-cost maker of cheap household goods to an advanced producer of electronic products and green tech. Cheap labor has been replaced by robots and AI. A new factory for Xiaomi, originally a smartphone maker, produces a new electric car every 76 seconds, or 40 per hour, without being touched by human hands.}
{Jacques argued that China’s reemergence as a major economic, political, and cultural power is a historical inevitability, requiring a readjustment in the Western view of the world. He writes:
“There has been an assumption by the Western mainstream that there is only one way of being modern, namely by adopting Western-style institutions, values, customs and beliefs, such as the rule of law, the free market and democratic norms.
“This, one might add, is an attitude typically held by peoples and cultures who regard themselves as more developed and more ‘civilized’ than others: that progress for those who are lower down on the developmental scale involves them becoming more like those who are higher up.”}
{Writing in 1992, Fukuyama did not foresee the budding crisis in Western democracies, the partial deindustrialization of the West, the growing concentration of wealth or the election of the anti-liberal Donald Trump and his “America First” agenda.}
{With the reforms initiated by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s, China reintegrated the Merchants into society, without allowing them to hijack the political system. When celebrated billionaire Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, became too big for his boots, the government put him in his place.
Chinese leaders continue to pay lip service to communist ideology, but the country has moved into the post-ideological era. Pragmatism has returned as a guiding principle. As Deng famously remarked, it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mouse.
Today, China is looking at its own rich cultural and social history to find a way forward beyond political ideology.
That is not to say that China ever stopped being Chinese. All through the revolutionary phase of communism and even during the ideology-driven vandalism of the Cultural Revolution, China remained a Confucian country at heart.
Confucianism is foundational to Chinese consciousness. It is what sets the country apart from India. Confucianism, in turn, was based on the notion of Tao and inspired the development of a key feature of Chinese society: the notion of reciprocity.}
{Reciprocity is the operating principle in the yin-yang system. It implies the mutual embrace of a shared purpose and shared values. Unlike altruism, which is based on unequal relationships, reciprocity is based on mutual dependencies.}
{In barely one generation, China became an industrial superpower. Today, it dominates globally in 75% of the technologies seen as essential for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.}
{Cultural communications scholar Bill Kelly, author of “A New World Arising”, points at the dilemma facing the West. “Neoliberalism,” according to Kelly, “led to community breakdown, the alienation of the individual, and the loss of an overriding aspiration that a majority can embrace. This puts the West at a considerable disadvantage in terms of socially mobilizing its people behind government leadership.”
Neoliberalism is the ugly expression of the Merchants’ mindset and a remnant of colonial days. Knowing it can’t compete with China’s industrial giants, it tries to prolong Western military and financial hegemony at all costs. It fights foreign wars on the pretext of protecting freedom and democracy at home, a ruse intended to keep the Workers distracted.
Instead of taking their cue from Francis Fukuyama, the neoliberals should have heeded the warning of historian Paul Kennedy. In his book “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”, Kennedy explained that the relative decline of great powers often stems from overstretch. Declining powers extend their military commitments beyond what their economic resources can sustain.}
{The macrohistorians used these models to predict major historical changes in economics, power relations and geopolitics. Curiously, none of them predicted that China would emerge as a challenger to US global preeminence.}
{The emergence of China as a global power is less surprising when seen in a historical context. For much of recorded history, including the colonial period, China was the world’s largest economy, rivaled only by India. It was not until the end of the 19th century that the US took the top spot.}
{But few experts could have predicted the speed with which China modernized. The West took two centuries to industrialize, China did it in less than 50 years. In the process, China became the factory of the world and a spider in the web of the global supply chain. Shut down China and much of the world would come to a standstill.
In recent years, China has transitioned from a low-cost maker of cheap household goods to an advanced producer of electronic products and green tech. Cheap labor has been replaced by robots and AI. A new factory for Xiaomi, originally a smartphone maker, produces a new electric car every 76 seconds, or 40 per hour, without being touched by human hands.}
{Jacques argued that China’s reemergence as a major economic, political, and cultural power is a historical inevitability, requiring a readjustment in the Western view of the world. He writes:
“There has been an assumption by the Western mainstream that there is only one way of being modern, namely by adopting Western-style institutions, values, customs and beliefs, such as the rule of law, the free market and democratic norms.
“This, one might add, is an attitude typically held by peoples and cultures who regard themselves as more developed and more ‘civilized’ than others: that progress for those who are lower down on the developmental scale involves them becoming more like those who are higher up.”}
{Writing in 1992, Fukuyama did not foresee the budding crisis in Western democracies, the partial deindustrialization of the West, the growing concentration of wealth or the election of the anti-liberal Donald Trump and his “America First” agenda.}
{With the reforms initiated by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s, China reintegrated the Merchants into society, without allowing them to hijack the political system. When celebrated billionaire Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, became too big for his boots, the government put him in his place.
Chinese leaders continue to pay lip service to communist ideology, but the country has moved into the post-ideological era. Pragmatism has returned as a guiding principle. As Deng famously remarked, it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mouse.
Today, China is looking at its own rich cultural and social history to find a way forward beyond political ideology.
That is not to say that China ever stopped being Chinese. All through the revolutionary phase of communism and even during the ideology-driven vandalism of the Cultural Revolution, China remained a Confucian country at heart.
Confucianism is foundational to Chinese consciousness. It is what sets the country apart from India. Confucianism, in turn, was based on the notion of Tao and inspired the development of a key feature of Chinese society: the notion of reciprocity.}
{Reciprocity is the operating principle in the yin-yang system. It implies the mutual embrace of a shared purpose and shared values. Unlike altruism, which is based on unequal relationships, reciprocity is based on mutual dependencies.}
{In barely one generation, China became an industrial superpower. Today, it dominates globally in 75% of the technologies seen as essential for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.}
{Cultural communications scholar Bill Kelly, author of “A New World Arising”, points at the dilemma facing the West. “Neoliberalism,” according to Kelly, “led to community breakdown, the alienation of the individual, and the loss of an overriding aspiration that a majority can embrace. This puts the West at a considerable disadvantage in terms of socially mobilizing its people behind government leadership.”
Neoliberalism is the ugly expression of the Merchants’ mindset and a remnant of colonial days. Knowing it can’t compete with China’s industrial giants, it tries to prolong Western military and financial hegemony at all costs. It fights foreign wars on the pretext of protecting freedom and democracy at home, a ruse intended to keep the Workers distracted.
Instead of taking their cue from Francis Fukuyama, the neoliberals should have heeded the warning of historian Paul Kennedy. In his book “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”, Kennedy explained that the relative decline of great powers often stems from overstretch. Declining powers extend their military commitments beyond what their economic resources can sustain.}
