My Take | Some China experts do get things right
- The international news media have a terrible record in tracking and explaining China’s rise, but some writers, both in China and the West, are worth reading
Nowadays, a “China expert” is almost a term of abuse. Fortunately, not everyone is of the same calibre as Gordon Chang of The Coming Collapse of China infamy, first published in 2001. It’s going to happen any year now, he says, during the period when China emerged as the world’s second largest economy.
Some seasoned commentators have actually made fairly accurate predictions, and/or sensible policy recommendations, for both China and the West. I have been following their work in recent years just so I can plagiarise their ideas for my column.
There is a terribly interesting book by Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator at the Financial Times, first published in 2016 and titled Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century.
At the time, I thought the last part of his book was almost bizarre, but now it has proved to be extremely prescient. After spending almost the entire book showing that China’s rise was inexorable, and that in time, every country would have to adjust to this new reality, Rachman argues that the West, led by the United States, must resist China for as long as they can.