The Implications of the Rise of China

Abstract

The rise of China has taken place with stunning speed. At the time of 9/11 and subsequently the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Western discourse was dominated by the idea of the United States as the sole superpower: China was still very much an afterthought. China began to impinge, in dramatic fashion, on the global consciousness from around 2004, as its exports became ubiquitous around the world and then its demand for commodities began to drive up primary prices. From Europe to Japan, Africa to the United States, its impact has been worldwide. There are two factors that lend China’s rise a special character: first, an extremely high growth rate since 1978 and second, an enormous population of 1.3 billion people. Together they mean that the speed of China’s rise, by historical standards, is unprecedented and likewise its global effect. One example of this is the use of terms like ‘China goods’ and ‘China prices’ in the early 2000s in response to the dramatic growth of Chinese exports in a multitude of markets: similarly, we might use the term ‘China speed’ to describe the greatly foreshortened sense of time that is involved in every aspect of China’s progress and impact. When considering how China’s rise is likely to affect Europe it is important to bear this in mind: what might lie in the far future in the context of other countries is more likely to lie in the near future in the case of China.

This paper is based on Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World, London: Penguin, 2009.