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China economy
Opinion

China’s rise is assured in our new world order, but not as a hegemon

Jean-Pierre Lehmann says though one major power dominated the past two centuries – Britain in the 19th and America in the 20th – in the 21st century, no single country will be calling the shots. Instead, the tussle for influence will be fiercest on the Asia-Pacific stage

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In the Greater Eurasian space, China clearly dominates. But for a number of reasons, there will be no Chinese hegemon comparable to the UK or US. Illustration: Craig Stephens
Jean-Pierre Lehmann

During most of my working life, I have commuted physically and intellectually between western Europe and East Asia, where I spent part of my childhood and where I have over the years lived, studied, worked and taught. Of course, to get from one to the other, one has to traverse the Eurasian continent. Which is what I did. In the late 1960s/early 1970s, for example, I would take a ship from Portsmouth to Leningrad (as it then was), a train from Leningrad to Moscow, a plane from Moscow to Khabarovsk, a train from Khabarovsk to Nakhodka, a boat from Nakhodka to Yokohama, then, the final leg, a train from Yokohama to Tokyo.

I would occasionally stop for a few days along the way. The icy cold war atmosphere notwithstanding, the warmth (and liquidity: lots of vodka!) of Russian hospitality lived well up to its reputation. I had read in my teens lots of Russian literature, and was enthralled when I read 15 years ago that splendid history of Russian culture, Natasha’s Dance by Orlando Figes. That was 15 years ago, a year after China acceded to the World Trade Organisation. In the meantime, academically I remained an East-West guy.

I watched, totally bedazzled, the transformations occurring in the Asia-Pacific, especially the awesome developments in China. As a product of the mid-20th century, I was influenced by the view that the words “poor” and “Chinese” were synonymous. This was true not only in the West – whether in Europe or the United States – but also in Japan. The Chinatown in Yokohama, which I occasionally visited in the 1950s with my parents (who lived at the time in Tokyo), was poor. In the second half of the 1980s, when I was based in Tokyo, as rumours of a potential Chinese growth story began circulating and Japan was experiencing stratospheric growth, I found Japanese I spoke to quite dismissive.
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By the beginning of this century, the China narrative has been dramatically transformed, as has its impact on the world. The global balance of economic power is moving from West to East, as the Atlantic centuries seem to be entering their concluding chapters and an Asia-Pacific century emerges in the 21st.

Learning from China: three lessons for the ignorant West

A worker processes panda soft toys for export to American and European markets at a factory in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, on October 9. By the beginning of this century, the China narrative has been dramatically transformed, and the global balance of economic power is moving from West to East. Photo: Reuters
A worker processes panda soft toys for export to American and European markets at a factory in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, on October 9. By the beginning of this century, the China narrative has been dramatically transformed, and the global balance of economic power is moving from West to East. Photo: Reuters

Why the West and Japan should stop preaching to a rising China

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