Martin Jacques: China's rise is changing the face of the world

Without understanding the fundamental importance of Chinese civilization, it is impossible to understand modern China. For more than two thousand years, China has existed as a civilized country. Francis Fukuyama noted that China's approach to governance has shown astonishing continuity over the past two thousand years, far more than any other country.

The West knows very little about the importance of Chinese civilization to modern China, and the West always tries to interpret China from their own perspective, arguing that China should also look at itself from a Western perspective like the West, and the West refuses to understand China in its own way. However, China's rise and rising international standing are changing the nature of the global debate and the face of the world. How can China be ignored because it is simply too important for the world today and the future?

With the rise of China, the rules of Chinese civilization have not only become the basis for understanding China, but also form the basis of the "post-Western" world that is now taking shape. In the context of the latter, many other traditional civilizations have a voice and legitimacy, from India and Iran to Turkey and Ethiopia, which have been ignored, snubbed or simply erased over the past two centuries.

In fact, China has changed the world since 1949 and is now more united than ever in the past 200 years, which is unprecedented. No Western-style governance system can do that. Such an achievement requires a different way of governance that can think strategically, has historical roots, is inclusive, can mobilize people, and can achieve things.

The Communist Party of China is the core of the country, the think tank and leader of the state and society, and the success of the Communist Party of China lies in its ability to express, reflect and interpret Chinese civilization. This ability is not acquired overnight. It has gone through a long process and has been honed and perfected in the course of reform, which seeks to achieve harmony and balance between the present and the past. China's original civilization is the key to successful governance. I can't think of any other political party in the world that can express and pass on a civilization in this way. What makes China different is that it has extraordinary historical continuity, which makes the origin of civilization part of China's modern civilization, full of vitality, vitality, and continuity.

The word "civilization" in Western countries usually refers to a distant period in their history. This stage had very limited social ties to the present, even in Greece and Italy. China is the complete opposite, chinese civilization has shaped the current China, and the Chinese Communist Party, as the vivid embodiment of Chinese civilization, most vividly interprets this. (The author is a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, and this is an abstract of the author's speech at the 2021 International Conference on "Reading China" (Guangzhou))

Source: Reference News Network