菁华专访：《当中国统治世界》作者 Mr Martin Jacques

编辑：三三资料来源：FineBornChina 发表时间：2014-08-08 15:40

菁华专访:《当中国统治世界》作者 Mr Martin Jacques 马丁•雅克

中国经济当中国统治世界菁华专访

LM:What sparked your interest in China, and how did you come to write your international bestseller ‘When China Rules the World’?

MJ:My interest in East Asia as a whole started completely by accident. Until the early 1990s, my work had been mainly limited to the UK and Europe. My circumstances changed when I went on holiday in 1993 to East Asia. I went to Southern China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. And I was absolutely astonished by it all. I found it fascinating – eachplace I went to was different.It was during this time that a question came to my mind: city states like Hong Kong and Singapore are so modern, but are they Western?
It also so happened that I met my future wife on that trip in Malaysia. So it was a passion for what I was seeing and my passion for my wife.

LM:What do you believe has been the key determinant behind China’s recent growth?

MJ:When China started its economic transformation under Deng Xiaoping, there were already clear examples that this strategy was more successful than the Maoist period. There was the opening up of the Chinese market, the focus on export-led growth and a combination of state and market. This turned out to be a very fruitful approach.However, too often neglected is the role of Mao Zedong from 1949 onwards.The success of the reform period was built on Mao. Mao wasn’t a great policy person, but the fact that he overcame 150 years of Chinese decline and fragmentation was hugely important and never to be underestimated. In that sense, I would say that Mao was more important than Deng, even though I hugely admire Deng. What Mao provided was the basic foundations for China’s growth.Historically, China was a prosperous power until the end of the 18th century. This huge country has, since about 211BC, been unified as a single large polity. Indeed, there have been periods of fragmentation and periods of cohesion.

But the worst periods of Chinese have been when it was fragmented, and the best periods have been when it was cohesive. It has a strong sense of being unified.Central to that is the state. This is something that Westerners don’t understand. They don’t understand the Chinese state. It is very different from Western states.Mao reconstituted the state as an effective institution. If the state is not effective in Chinese society, then Chinese society does not work. That’s what Mao’s achievement was.So the question shouldn’t be, ‘Wow, how did they do it after 1978?’, but rather, ‘Why did it take until 1978?’ We shouldn’t be surprised by what\'s happening because China has historically been one of the most advanced countries in the world. There is much that the Chinese can draw upon from their history, which has enabled them to do what they’re doing.

LM:Could you explain the notions of a nation state and a civilisation state with regards to China?

MJ:The modern concept of a nation state emerged from Europe. With its extraordinary success, European nation states expanded and colonisedmuch of the world. Even after ending imperialism, most newly independent countries adopted the nation state model. National identity is fundamental to the way in which Western nation states are constituted. But with China, we must understand it in civilisational terms.

China was not a nation state, but it was forced by its relative weakness at the end of the 19th century to adopt the nation state model. So whilst it may be a nation state, China is primarily a civilisationstate at the same time. Its sense of consciousness is civilisational rather than national. It is not derived from the past 100 years like other nation states, but rather the past 2,000 years. It has maintained long-held ideologies such as Confucianism, the relationship of state and society, and the notion of family. This is very different from all European countries and the US.

As a civilisation state, China has three key characteristics. Firstly, it has longevity. We’re talking about an extraordinary long historical period – thelongest continuously existing polity in the world. 2000 years. You can’t understand the Chinese state and its relationship with society without it.

Secondly, China has consistency. Chinese civilisation has relatively coincided with Chinese borders over a long historical period.

Thirdly, the sheer scale of Chinahas given it a particular characteristic. A civilisation state is impossible to run under narrow and rigid unitary lines. Although China is not a federal state, the provincial governments have huge powers which nation state cities don’t enjoy.So when Deng Xiao Ping proposed for Hong Kong that it be ‘one country, two systems’, this was drawn directly from experiences of being a civilisation state. A nation state never thinks like that.

LM:How will China continue its rise to global influence?

MJ:You have to recognise that the rise of China has a profound novelty in global terms. For 200 odd years, with the partial exception of Japan, all the dominant countries have been Western. We must recognise that China comes from very different historical and cultural roots to the West.

My argument is that when a country rises, its impact is initially quite basic (poor countries have little appeal). A countryneeds time to work out what it wants to be, what itcan offer and how it sees the world. It’s only with time that it can begin to leave a wider mark on the world.

Although the Chinese government has a strategic culture, it has been so preoccupied with transforming the country out of poverty that it hasn’t been able to give much attention to this until extremely recently. After all, China only started to go global about 15 years ago.

I’m strongly in the view that China will not end up as a Western-style society. I don’t mean that there won’t be things in common, but it will have a very distinctive Chinese character. In fact, I think modernisation in a country can only really succeed if it is essentially indigenous rather than borrowed. Otherwise, its modernisation process will be unsuccessful. Modernisation is not just an economic project, it’s a human project – people have to think it’s their own, not something imported from the US.

LM:So what will be the predominant form of Chinese global influence?

MJ:The two forms of Chinese influence will be economic and cultural. These will be realised through its two great advantages: cultural richness and a large population. Unlike the UK and US, China has not been a great meddler in other countries’ political affairs. The primary form of Western influence was military power through colonisation and later through military bases by the US.Indeed, the Chinese tributary system was certainly an unequal system, but China did not try to colonise surrounding countries. It was not a particular interferer in governance.I think China will be much more distinctive than people realise.

Economically, China is also going to be much more powerful in the world than the US and UK have ever been because of its huge population. The economy is projected to be twice the US economy by 2030. This kind of economic leverage and presence in the world will be enormous.

Culturally, if you go back to the tributary system, at the heart of Chinese influence was the sense of Chinese civilisation, and the respect it expected of the tribute states. There was recognition of ‘superior’ Chinese culture because it was a very advanced culture relative to those around it. Now, at the moment, it’s difficult for us to think in these terms because China has been very poor. And therefore, no one has known much about it until the last ten years.
Chinese culture also does not appear to be a particularly modern phenomenon. When you talk about Chinese culture, people often think of traditional culture. Traditional culture is dying out. So what has to happen is that there will be a new modernised Chinese culture that will emerge-
a product of the internet era and a reworking of traditional values. It will still draw heavily from the past such as Chinese notions of the family, of the state, language and literature. But this will take time.

LM:You mentioned that there is a great misunderstanding in the West with regards to China. Why is this so?

MJ:For 200 years, the world had been exposed to the West. The world is extremely familiar with the West. The Chinese are very familiar with the West. They know a lot about it – many can speak Englishand they all know key Western historical dates.
However, the rest of the world is still very ignorant of China. When I was at school, I never learned anything about China. China was not in my curriculum in any shape or form. We did nothing on China. Zheng He’s great voyages were completely unknown. That can\'t be changed overnight. Because of Western global hegemony, it’s a global problem. So there’s a huge knowledge deficit that must be overcome. China is a treasure trove that is still locked away.

But we can see in the last 10~15 years what extraordinary progress has been made. People are now beginning to learn Chinese. People are now very interested in China.

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