【英语中国】当中国主宰世界

When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World

by Martin Jacques

Allen Lane £30, 550 pages

FT Bookshop price £20

Books about China ruling the world used to be prefaced by “if”. Now, more often, they are preceded by the assumptive “when”. Such is the age we live in. Martin Jacques' 550-pager on the ascent of China finds little space to consider the question of whether its rapid economic progress is unstoppable. It ignores almost entirely the other popular – and perfectly plausible – premise for books on the Middle Kingdom: “When China's miracle goes phut”.

Jacques' book is based on the extrapolation that, by 2050, China will be the biggest economy in the world, surpassing the US and India which, by then, will be third. By virtue of what Jacques calls the “merciless measure” of gross domestic product, China will be politically and militarily the most powerful country in the world.

We might argue about these two central premises, namely that China's GDP will inevitably surpass that of the US, and that there is an almost mechanical relationship between economic output and power. These are legitimate points of debate for other books. Yet Jacques can be forgiven for making this leap of faith and asking what will happen to the world if, indeed, China becomes a dominant power.

Jacques' thesis – argued clearly and logically, if somewhat laboriously – is that China's rise will overturn “western” assumptions about what it is to be modern. To date, the world's only successful economies of any size – with the exception of Japan – have been European or, in the case of the US, of European pedigree. The knee-jerk assumption of globalisation, he argues, is that as countries modernise they take on western characteristics.“We are so used to the world being western, even American, that we have little idea what it would be like if it was not,” he writes.

Jacques contends, not unreasonably, that China's continental size, huge population, racial homogeneity and confidence in the centrality of its own civilisation make for a country capable of redefining what it is to be modern.

If Britain was a maritime hegemon and the US an airborne and economic one, then China will be a cultural one, he predicts. As Chinese confidence grows apace with its decisive emergence from two centuries of humiliation, its overriding attitude will not be one of catching up with the west, but rather of regaining its rightful place as the world's pre-eminent civilisation. “As the dominant global power, China is likely to have a strongly hierarchical view of the world, based on a combination of racial and cultural attitudes,” he writes.

China will draw on its Confucian roots, a paternalistic ethos that, he argues, is not readily compatible with western democratic principles. He goes so far as to suggest that it would be best for China, indeed the world, if the “present regime continues” for some time, a verdict that this former editor of Marxism Today might not have advanced, say, about the Chile of Augusto Pinochet.

Much of the future Jacques foresees for China can be found in its past. He expects it to reassert elements of its ancient tributary relationship with neighbouring countries, leaving them alone so long as they pay cultural obeisance. China's idea of itself as a living civilisation – what he calls a “civilization-state” as opposed to a nation-state – means it will never yield to assaults on its unity, particularly when it comes to Taiwan.

Jacques' overriding point is that, in future, “the debate over values will be rooted in culture rather than ideology, since the underlying values of a society are primarily the outcome of distinctive histories and cultures”. His contention is that, since China's culture and history are so formidable, it will not bend to western norms. If there is any bending to be done, it is the west that must yield.

That makes the book a useful corrective to those who assume that emerging superpowers, principal among them China, will recreate themselves in America's image. Yet Jacques puts too much faith in culture as the ultimate arbiter of a nation's destiny. He dismisses the argument of Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, that the divide between east and west is more a question of time lag than intrinsic cultural difference. But in doing so, he goes too far the other way. He overemphasises Asia's cultural predilections for community over individual, for social relationships over law, and for stability over freedom. In both south-east and north-east Asian culture, he writes, “the individual finds affirmation and recognition not in their own individual identity but in being part of a group”. These are sweeping statements that, at worst, sound like a Singaporean advertisement for Asian values.

Jacques' writing on racism is revealing. Contrasting China with multicultural America, he presents it as an inherently racist culture more or less incapable of summoning a multicultural view of the world. “The fact that the Chinese regard themselves as superior to the rest of the human race, and that this belief has a racial component, will confront the rest of the world with a serious problem,” he writes. In what he describes as the “Middle Kingdom mentality”, he presents China as uniquely conflicted in its simultaneous feeling of superiority to other cultures and its inferiority to westerners who have overtaken it. These conflicted attitudes, for example, are common, and describe feelings of frustration and national inheritance denied (or at least postponed) in countries as far apart as Argentina and Japan.

In China's rise, Jacques tends to see menace, albeit of a cultural rather than a militaristic nature. China's view of itself as the centre of civilisation will, he says, lead to a “profound cultural and racial reordering of the world in the Chinese image”. But Jacques is more on the right lines when, elsewhere in the book, he talks about competing modernities. If, as he expects, China emerges as a world power to challenge the US, then modernisation is likely to be a two-way street, even a multi-lane highway, on which different versions circulate of what it means to be modern.

In the future, Americans may indeed watch more Chinese films and study Mandarin. But, by the same token, the Chinese will continue to learn from the west as its wholesale import of western capital, business practice and technology demonstrates. Just as Europeans and Americans may read more Confucius, so the Chinese will study more Shakespeare. It sounds like fun. The world is more likely to become multi-polar and culturally layered than recreated in China's image. That is the whole point: China will not rule the world.

David Pilling is the managing editor of the FT's Asia edition

《当中国统治世界：中央王国的兴起与西方世界的终结》（When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World）

马丁•雅克(Martin Jacques)著, Allen Lane 定价30英镑，550页

FT 书店定价 20英镑

以往，关于中国统治世界的书籍通常以“假如”开头。而如今，在更多的情况下，开头换成了 “当……的时候”，仿佛认为必然会有这么一天。这就是我们生活的时代。马丁•雅克关于中国崛起的新书篇幅长达550页，但没用多少笔墨论述中国的经济腾飞是否无可阻挡的问题，也几乎完全忽略了有关“中央王国”图书的另一个常见前提：“当中国奇迹破灭时”——这种情况完全有可能出现。

雅克此书基于以下推断：到2050年，中国将成为全球最大经济体，超过美国和印度，届时印度将名列第三。凭借其国内生产总值(GDP)——雅克称之为“冰冷无情的衡量方式”——中国将成为世界上最大的政治和军事强国。

我们可能围绕以下这两个核心前提展开讨论：即中国的GDP必将超过美国；及在经济产出与权力之间存在近乎必然的联系。在其它书中，这些是合理的论述要点。但雅克跳过了这些，直接拷问：假如中国真的成为占据主导地位的强国，世界将会怎样？他这么处理情有可原。

雅克的命题是：中国的崛起将推翻现代化的“西方式”涵义。他的论证虽说稍嫌晦涩，但条理清楚，合乎逻辑。时至今日，除日本以外，世界上所有获得成功的经济体（无论规模大小）都是欧洲国家，或是像美国那样，与欧洲一脉相承。雅克指出，对于现代化，人们下意识的理解是：当一个国家走向现代化时，也就具有了西方特色。他写道：“我们已经习惯于世界是西方式的，甚至是美国式的，我们不知道，如果不是这样，它会是什么样的。”

雅克不无道理地指出，中国的陆地规模、庞大人口、种族同质性以及对自身文明向心力的信心，使其具备了重新定义现代化的能力。

他预言，如果说英国曾经是海上霸主，而美国是空中及经济霸主，那么，中国将成为一个文化霸主。随着中国从两个世纪的屈辱中坚定地崛起，中国人信心高涨，其最高目标不会是与西方并驾齐驱，而是夺回其作为世界优秀文明所应享有的地位。雅克写道：“如果成为占据主导地位的世界强国，中国可能会形成一种具有强烈等级色彩的世界观。这种世界观将建立在文化与种族观点相结合的基础上。”

他指出，中国将回归儒家根源，而这种家长制文化与西方的民主原则格格不入。他进而认为，如果中国“现行政体继续维持”一段时期，对于中国乃至世界都最为有利。在其它情况下，这位《今日马克思主义》(Marxism Today)的前编辑恐怕不曾提出过这种观点。比如说，对于奥古斯托•皮诺切特(Augusto Pinochet)时期的智利。

雅克有关中国的预言，有许多可以从中国过去的历史中找到影子。他预计，中国将重新主张其与邻国古老的附庸关系，只要它们在文化上尊崇中国，中国就不会干涉它们。中国认为中华文明是一种生机勃勃的文明——他称之为“文明-国家”，与“民族-国家”的概念相对——对于威胁其国家统一的攻击，中国永远不会低头，尤其是在台湾问题上。

雅克最重要的论点是，将来“围绕价值观的争论将源于文化，而非意识形态，因为一个社会的基本价值观主要是特定历史文化的产物”。他认为，中国的历史文化如此博大精深，因此不会屈从于西方模式。假如势必有一方要屈从，那也会是西方。

上述观点有利于纠正那些认为新兴超级大国（主要指中国）将效仿美国重塑自我的观点。但雅克过分笃信文化是国家命运的终极决定因素。他驳斥了英国治下的末任香港总督彭定康(Chris Patten)的观点，彭定康认为，东西方差异主要表现在发展时间上的差异，而非内在文化差异。但雅克在相反的方向上走过了头。他过分强调亚洲文化重集体轻个人、重社会关系轻法律、重稳定轻自由等特点。他写道，在东南亚和东北亚文化中，“个人不是从自我认同、而是从属于某个团体中得到肯定和认可”。说得严重些，这些笼统的说法简直就像一则鼓吹亚洲价值观的新加坡广告。

雅克关于种族主义的论述颇富洞见。他将中国与多元文化的美国对比，认为中国本质上是一种种族主义文化，恐怕无法形成多文化的世界观。他写道：“中国人自认为高人一等，这种观念本身就具有种族主义的色彩，这将成为世界其他地区面临的一个严重问题。”根据他所描述的“中央王国心态”，中国存在独特的矛盾心理：一方面觉得自己比其他文化优越，一方面对曾经超越自己的西方抱有自卑情结。比如说，这种矛盾心态普遍存在，反映了挫折感以及民族传承遭日本和远至阿根廷等国家否认（或至少迟迟不肯承认）的情况。

对于中国的崛起，雅克倾向于视之为威胁，但他认为这种威胁存在于文化层面，而不具有军国主义性质。他表示，中国认为自己是文明中心的观点，将导致“世界比照中国形象深刻的重构文化与种族秩序”。但雅克在书中其他部分有关相互竞争的现代性的论述更有见地。如果如他所料，中国崛起为足以挑战美国的世界强国，那么，现代化可能成为一条双向、甚至是多车道的道路，不同版本的现代化并行不悖。

将来，美国人或许真的会更多地观看中国电影，并学习汉语，而中国人也将继续学习西方，就像其批量输入西方资本、商业惯例与技术一样。二者具有同样的象征意义。正如欧美人或许会更多阅读孔子学说一样，中国人也将更多地学习莎士比亚。这听起来十分有趣。比起仿照中国形象重建，世界更可能成为多极、多文化的世界。这就是要点所在：中国不会统治世界。

本文作者系英国《金融时报》亚洲版主编戴维•皮林(David Pilling)

译者/岱嵩