Martin Jacques on Chinese path of development and its global significance

Interview Series: Community with a Shared Future for Mankind

EP12: Martin Jacques on Chinese path of development and its global significance

Q1: The development of China may be seen as a threat to some Western countries like the United States. The 2022 US National Security Strategy recognizes China as “America's most consequential geological challenge” and “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly power to do it”. How do you comment on the US strategies and how do you view China’s development?

Martin Jacques: This is the new American foreign policy. United States has decided that the rise of China is a threat to its position on the world. I think this is a very bad turn. China’s rise mean changes in the international order, and that is inevitable. But there no international order that has ever been frozen. And today and tomorrow are no exception to this. This is the situation. In fact, China’s been extraordinary, what we say, patient and calm about its transformation. I mean, unlike the rise of America or the rise of Britain, or the rise of France, or the rise of Germany, or the rise Italy, or whatever, where which led to invasions, occupations and so on, China’s none of them. So, China is being very peaceful in its approach to these things.

Q2: What can other countries learn from Chinese path to modernization? What can they benefit from the cooperation with China?

Martin Jacques: We’ve seen in the past what Chinese modernization is meant for China. And in terms of what it offered to other countries, the very fact that China is what it is now has enabled China to be very important assisting the development of other countries, which, if it hadn't transformed itself, would not have been possible.

The kind modernization that China will embark on in the future is going to be across a much wider range of areas that China is going to be thinking in these terms. And now we've got to a point where China is going to be a very important source of ideas for the modernization of lots of countries.

I think Belt and Road is actually one of the most interesting initiative in terms of the way in which, kind of international agreements we could have, and how they help the developing countries. And you can tell from the response of Belt and Road. I don't know what the latest figure is, but something like 140 countries, there are only about less than 200 countries in the world, have signed agreements under Belt and Road. So the appeal of it is enormous.

Q3: What do you think of China’s vision of a community with shared future for mankind? How is China carrying out this concept?

Martin Jacques: The importance of this idea is that the resolution of some of the most important problems of the world requires the cooperation not just of one or two countries, but a range of countries. And it offers a way of looking at international relations in a more dynamic and useful fashion.

The best example of shared future for mankind can be found in the Belt and Road Initiative, the idea of which is to transform the economic condition of Eurasia by means of investment in infrastructure.

There are many other examples. In the long run, a classic example is going to be fight against climate change. Because this can only be resolved by the cooperation of the whole of humanity, not just governments, but at all levels of society. The idea of a shared future from mankind is expressed very obviously in the demands of fighting global warming.