“The era when the United States was the dominant global power is steadily coming to an end, and it must find a way of acknowledging this and framing its ambitions and interests accordingly. Instead of claiming the right to continuing primacy in east Asia, for example, it should seek to share that primacy with China.”
― Martin Jacques
“Now, I know it’s a widespread assumption in the West that as countries modernize, they also westernize. This is an illusion. It’s an assumption that modernity is a product simply of competition, markets and technology. It is not. It is also shaped equally by history and culture. China is not like the West, and it will not become like the West.”
― Martin Jacques
“The fact that television and tourism have made the whole world accessible has created the illusion that we enjoy intimate knowledge of other places, when we barely scratch their surface. For the vast majority, the knowledge of Thailand or Sri Lanka acquired through tourism consists of little more than the whereabouts of the beach.”
― Martin Jacques
“At the heart of globalisation is a new kind of intolerance in the West towards other cultures, traditions and values, less brutal than in the era of colonialism, but more comprehensive and totalitarian.”
― Martin Jacques
“When I am back in old Blighty, I am surrounded by the old and familiar concerns: New Labour, Europe, the Middle East and the rest. If you live in Britain, you will know what I mean – except you won’t, because you will take it for granted that this is what the world is all about.”
― Martin Jacques
“The world is fortunate – for the time being, at least – that it has an American president in Obama who is prepared to take a conciliatory and concessive attitude towards America’s decline and that it has a Chinese leadership which has been extremely cautious about expressing an opinion, let alone flexing its muscles.”
― Martin Jacques
“If the Age of Sport has been all champagne and roses hitherto, then expect our love affair with its newly-acquired prominence to become increasingly tainted by scandals about cheating. Sport is losing its shine and allure.”
― Martin Jacques
“The World Cup is not just a great global sporting event, it is also inscribed with much deeper cultural and political importance.”
― Martin Jacques
“Never underestimate the ability of political leaders to misread history on a monumental scale. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have both served to hasten western decline: they have both failed to achieve their objectives and in the process demonstrated an underlying western impotence.”
― Martin Jacques
“Labour was always aligned with the U.S. during the Cold War, but the ignominious implosion of communism reinforced the belief that no alternative to the prevailing common sense was possible.”
― Martin Jacques
“Following the end of the Cold War, there was much discussion concerning the point of NATO. In the event, it was reinvented as a means of reducing Russia’s reach on its western frontiers and seeking to isolate it. Its former East European client states were admitted to NATO, as were the Baltic states.”
― Martin Jacques
“Globalisation has obliterated distance, not just physically but also, most dangerously, mentally. It creates the illusion of intimacy when, in fact, the mental distances have changed little. It has concertinaed the world without engendering the necessary respect, recognition and tolerance that must accompany it.”
― Martin Jacques
“If the truth be told, we are a society that is dripping in racism. This is not in the least surprising. For the best part of two centuries, we British ruled the waves, controlled two-fifths of the planet, and believed it was our responsibility to bring civilisation to those who allegedly lacked it.”
― Martin Jacques
“We still insist, by and large, in thinking that we can understand China by simply drawing on Western experience, looking at it through Western eyes, using Western concepts. If you want to know why we unerringly seem to get China wrong… this is the reason.”
― Martin Jacques
“China is, indeed, in so many ways, not like the West. It is not even primarily a nation state but a civilisation state. Whereas the West has primarily been shaped by its experience of nation, China has been moulded by its sense of civilisation.”
― Martin Jacques
“More than 90% of Chinese believe themselves to be Han. Of course, such a vast population is derived from countless different races, but because China has enjoyed such a long and continuous history as a polity, there has been thousands of years of mixing, melding and assimilation.”
― Martin Jacques
“The two ethnic groups that remain fundamentally different from the Han Chinese – in terms of history, culture, language, religion and physical appearance – are the Uighurs and Tibetans. In these two groups, the Han Chinese come face to face with difference.”
― Martin Jacques
“Although one of the key justifications for the Vietnam war was to prevent the spread of communism, the U.S. defeat was to produce nothing of the kind: apart from the fact that Cambodia and Laos became embroiled, the effects were essentially confined to Vietnam.”
― Martin Jacques
“Koizumi was not rooted in Japan’s rightwing nationalist tradition: he was a pragmatist and a populist. Abe, in contrast, is a rightwing nationalist. Unlike Koizumi, for example, he has questioned the validity of the postwar Tokyo trials of Japan’s wartime leaders, which found many of them guilty of war crimes.”
― Martin Jacques
“No one likes to admit they are racist or bear prejudices. Nor do they even like to be open and honest when they witness racist behaviour.”
― Martin Jacques
“The question is not whether Tibet should be independent but the extent of the autonomy that it is allowed. Tibet has been firmly ensconced as part of the Chinese empire since the Qing dynasty’s military intervention in Tibet in the early 18th century.”
― Martin Jacques
“The more expensive and/or exclusive a sport, the whiter it tends to be: the fact almost has the force of a law. That is the main reason why the Rugby World Cup, the Pacific islands excepted, was so desperately white, the Springboks included.”
― Martin Jacques
“In my experience (I am the lone father of an eight-year-old boy who lost his mother when he was one year old), parenting is the most difficult of all jobs: forget your chief executives, editors, prime ministers and the like – parenting is far more challenging.”
― Martin Jacques
“The Chinese view the state, not just as an intimate member of the family… but as the head of the family.”
― Martin Jacques
“Stuart Hall was an utterly unique figure. Although he arrived at the age of 19 from Jamaica and spent the rest of his life here, he never felt at home in Britain. This juxtaposition was a crucial source of his strength and originality. Because of his colour and origin, he saw the country differently – not as a native, but as an outsider.”
― Martin Jacques
“It remains to be seen whether the more optimistic scenario for Sino-American relations can be realised. Much rests on the shoulders of the two leaders: Obama on this score has so far been disappointing; the early signs are that Xi is a highly confident leader who thinks big.”
― Martin Jacques
“Our ascendancy of the past two centuries – first Europe and then the U.S. – has bred a western-centric mentality: the West is the fount of all wisdom. We think of ourselves as open-minded, but our sense of superiority has closed our minds. We never entertained the idea that China could surpass the U.S.”
― Martin Jacques
“There are a host of ethnic minorities in China, but they often have a weak sense of identity and are relatively small in total number. History has taught the Han that other groups will and should ultimately be absorbed and assimilated as Han. There is a belief that the Han enjoy a superior and far more advanced culture.”
― Martin Jacques
“China has existed within very roughly its present borders for over two millennia and for virtually the whole of that period saw itself as a ‘civilisation state.’ It was only when it was too weak to resist the western powers in the early 20th century that it finally acquiesced in an arrangement that was alien to it.”
― Martin Jacques
“The Chinese state is constructed in an entirely different way from western states. Unlike European states, for over a millennium the Chinese state has not been obliged to compete for power with rivals such as the church, the aristocracy or merchants.”
― Martin Jacques
“Marx and Engels are arguably history’s most famous couple. Such was the closeness of their collaboration that it is not always easy to recall which works bore both names, which just that of Marx, and which just Engels.”
― Martin Jacques
“Without doubt, Malaysia is the great economic star of the Muslim world.”
― Martin Jacques
“Israel is the agent and surrogate of the United States and as such is treated entirely differently from every other country in the region. How can anyone expect Iran to accept that it is right for Israel to have nuclear weapons while itself being disallowed?”
― Martin Jacques
“Every major power always seeks to justify its action on moral grounds. Such behaviour is almost as old as the hills. The west has been a particularly vigorous exponent of this credo; and there is no reason to believe that China, for example, will be any different. But behind the moral rhetoric invariably lies interest and ideology.”
― Martin Jacques
“While the West has enjoyed overwhelming global power, its moral preachings have been legitimised, and in effect enforced, by that power. But as that power begins to ebb, then the morality of its actions will be the subject of growing scrutiny and challenge.”
― Martin Jacques
“The election of the nationalist Chen Shui-bian as president in 2000 and his re-election in 2004 was a nadir in the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland.”
― Martin Jacques
“Already 2008 has proved a tumultuous year in terms of global perceptions of China, and there are still 59 days to go until the Beijing Olympics. The tragedy of the Sichuan earthquake followed hard on the heels of the riots in Tibet and the demonstrations surrounding the Olympic torch relay.”
― Martin Jacques
“If one wanted to find a modern symbol of personal freedom, the motor car is right there near the top of the list. But a car has come to mean much more than that. It has become a powerful statement about who you are and how much you earn.”
― Martin Jacques
“There may be little practical difference between a Ford Mondeo and a BMW three series, but in terms of perceptions of who you are and what you are, then they are worlds apart.”
― Martin Jacques
“In its heyday, the car was an expression of technical flair and design genius: the original Mini, the Beetle, the 2CV, and the Fiat 500 were all, in their various ways, inspired incarnations of functionality.”
― Martin Jacques
“One of the characteristics of New Labour – and Miliband is irredeemably of that species – is that, in the guise of a new liberal language, it has adopted the age-old default mode of British foreign policy, namely military intervention.”
― Martin Jacques
“The cost to Tata of purchasing Land Rover and Jaguar may have been small, but its wider symbolic significance is enormous.”
― Martin Jacques
“Just as the Japanese pioneered a new form of manufacturing – lean production and quite new standards of reliability – so Tata, too, is embracing new forms of manufacture in order to revolutionise the price to meet the consumer needs of a poor, developing country.”
― Martin Jacques
“Western countries are thoroughly accustomed to being the centre of global attention, which they have come to regard as their natural birthright. Not so China. It was thwarted in its attempt to hold the 2000 Olympics, which, as a result of American-led pressure, was awarded to Sydney.”
― Martin Jacques
“One of the unique features of China is that, notwithstanding the fact that it has a population of 1.3 billion, around 92% regard themselves as Han Chinese. This is quite different from the world’s other most populous countries, such as India, the U.S. and Indonesia, which are ethnically diverse.”
― Martin Jacques
“Fundamental systemic crises are often associated with the decline of the dominant imperial power and its increasing inability to sustain the system over which it had previously presided. The profound instability of the interwar period owed much to Britain’s inability to maintain its role.”
― Martin Jacques
“It is not an accident that developing countries – virtually the whole of East Asia, for example – view the role of the state in a far more interventionist way than does the Anglo-Saxon world. Laissez-faire and free markets are the favoured means of the powerful and privileged.”
― Martin Jacques
“The move towards neoliberalism in Britain was intimately bound up with the embrace of the U.S. as the country to be aped and copied.”
― Martin Jacques
“The American model was celebrated by Thatcherites and New Labour alike, California worshipped as the model of the future, ‘Anglo-Saxon’ embalmed as the fitting metaphor for the shared Anglo-American legacy, Europe denigrated and the rest of the world ignored.”
― Martin Jacques
“9/11 was a hugely overblown event that only assumed its overarching importance a) because it was done to the United States and b) because of the way the U.S. reacted.”
― Martin Jacques
“The fact that the Bush administration, and those in Europe who have followed its 9/11-inspired agenda, somehow believe that the future of the world is being played out in the Middle East and Central Asia rather than East Asia has only served to accelerate China’s rise and the U.S.’s decline.”
― Martin Jacques
“In Formula One, the car can make a difference in a way that a driver cannot. Whereas Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna spent their early seasons in second-rate machinery, Hamilton walked into the equal best car on the grid. His first season none the less has, by any standards, been extraordinary.”
― Martin Jacques
“The starting point for understanding the deterioration in the relationship between the U.S. and Russia lies in Washington rather than Moscow. After 1989, Russia was a defeated power. Despite the fine words and some limited gestures, the Americans have treated it like one. Their policy has been one of encirclement.”
― Martin Jacques
“Where the costs of entry are minimal, there is a wide avenue of opportunity for those with little or nothing, which is why football is just about the most democratic sport of all: African and Brazilian footballers compete on a level playing field with their rich white European counterparts.”
― Martin Jacques
“I admired Margaret Thatcher – while abhorring much of what she offered – because she was so clearly a leader of huge substance. Blair was the dismal opposite.”
― Martin Jacques
“Blair worshipped Thatcherism, could see little or no wrong in it, believed that that was what the country needed, thought that there was no alternative, regarded it as a legacy that had to be built on rather than rejected.”
― Martin Jacques
“Blair – except at the edges – was a Thatcherite. Brown, in contrast, regarded Thatcherism as something that had to be taken on board while at the same time seeking to retain as much as possible of the Labour legacy, or ‘Labour values,’ as he would put it.”
― Martin Jacques
“If anything, Brown is more oriented towards the other side of the Atlantic than Blair. Most of his reforming ideas and intellectual influences seem to come from the United States, and in a recent speech he went to great lengths to emphasise the historical affinity and shared characteristics of the U.K. and the U.S.”
― Martin Jacques
“Two European nations emerged with credit from the Iraq disaster: France and Germany. Both had the courage to withstand the Bush administration and oppose the U.S.-led invasion.”
― Martin Jacques
“If you are white, racism is too easily ignored and forgiven, regarded as of burning concern only to the ethnic minorities, and therefore of relatively marginal significance.”
― Martin Jacques
“There has always been something less than wholesome about New Labour. But Blair for a long time had an easy ride. There was the whopping majority. There was the relief that the Tories were finally gone. There was the grand hyperbole.”
― Martin Jacques
“The fact that hardly anyone is ever prepared to admit to racist behaviour is perhaps a sort of strength: it speaks to the fact that racism is socially inadmissible.”
― Martin Jacques
“Racism always exists cheek by jowl with, inside, and alongside culture and class. As a rule, it is inseparable from them. That is why, for example, food, language and names assume such importance in racial prejudice.”
― Martin Jacques
“Since the election of Shinzo Abe as the new Japanese prime minister, by reputation a fervent nationalist, relations between Japan and China have paradoxically improved a little.”
― Martin Jacques
“Our leaders increasingly see fit to lecture the ethnic minorities on the need to integrate, including of course the need to speak English. What about the need, though, for Britain to integrate with the rest of the world?”
― Martin Jacques
“Move beyond the educated elite, and the great majority in most countries outside Europe don’t speak English.”
― Martin Jacques
“With the United States in slow long-term decline, how will that affect the position of English? And where will all that leave monolingual Britain? Our political leaders like to boast about how global Britain is, but when it comes to languages, it is near the bottom of the global league, together with another island state, Japan.”
― Martin Jacques
“It is much easier to learn another language when you are young, enthusiastic and unembarrassed.”
― Martin Jacques
“In 1975, the Americans suffered a spectacular military defeat at the hands of North Vietnam and the Vietcong, with U.S. helicopters seeking to rescue leading U.S. personnel from the tops of buildings as Vietnamese guerrillas closed in on the centre of Saigon.”
― Martin Jacques
“The U.S. might enjoy overwhelming military advantage, but its relative economic power, which in the long run is almost invariably decisive, is in decline. The interregnum after the Cold War, far from being the prelude to a new American age, was bearing the signs of what is now very visible: the emergence of a multipolar world.”
― Martin Jacques
“An increasingly multipolar world requires an entirely different kind of U.S. foreign policy: far from being unilateralist, it necessitates a complex form of power-sharing on both a global and regional basis.”
― Martin Jacques
“One of the extraordinary features of the Blair government has been its slavish support for the central tenets of Bush’s foreign policy – above all, the war in Iraq. During the Cold War, the Wilson government resisted the suggestion that it should send troops to Vietnam.”
― Martin Jacques
“Blair’s support for the Americans should not be seen as an aberration; on the contrary, it is closely linked to the main contours of New Labour policy. This has been a government that has majored on hyperbole, but in fact, from the outset it was hugely timid and cravenly orthodox.”
― Martin Jacques
“In my experience, there are plenty of bad middle-class parents: those who put their own lives and careers before those of their children and make precious little time available for their offspring, preferring instead to hire in childcare and shower them with the latest and most expensive gadgets.”
― Martin Jacques
“My guess is that good and bad parenting is spread fairly evenly across different social groups. But can you imagine Tony Blair lecturing the middle class on how to bring up their children? He is far more comfortable as a latter-day exponent of the Poor Law mentality.”
― Martin Jacques
“Neoconservatism in all its pomp conceived – in the Project for a New American Century – that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world could be remade in the American image, that the previous bipolar world could be replaced by a unipolar one in which the U.S. was the dominant arbiter of global and regional affairs.”
― Martin Jacques
“Just six years into the 21st century, one can say this is not shaping up to be anything like an American century. Rather, the U.S. seems much more likely to be faced with a very different kind of future: how to manage its own imperial decline.”
― Martin Jacques
“The election of Shinzo Abe as the leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic party and now prime minister will have profound repercussions for Japan and East Asia. Most western commentary during the premiership of Junichiro Koizumi has been concerned with the extent to which Japan has allowed a freer rein to market forces.”
― Martin Jacques
“After the Meiji restoration in 1868, Japan adopted an expansionist and colonial attitude towards its neighbours. It sought to identify itself with the West and looked down upon the Asian continent as backward and inferior. For most of the next 70 years, Japan was at war, mainly with its neighbours.”
― Martin Jacques
“After its defeat in the Second World War, Japan, unlike Germany, failed to show true contrition or give a fulsome apology, though it showered its neighbours, including China, with generous economic assistance. Only in 1995 did it finally offer an apology, but this was of the most limited and formulaic kind.”
― Martin Jacques
“We all know what is meant by the term ‘international community,’ don’t we? It’s the West, of course, nothing more, nothing less. Using the term ‘international community’ is a way of dignifying the West, of globalising it, of making it sound more respectable, more neutral and high-faluting.”
― Martin Jacques
“Australia – not western in geography, of course, but in every other respect for sure (it certainly doesn’t want to be regarded as Asian, God forbid) – loves nothing more than to throw its weight around in South-East Asia by playing peacekeeper, carrying out its role as the United States’ regional policeman.”
― Martin Jacques
“Sport is increasingly played according to the tune, and rules, of those with the biggest bucks, whether their practices be legal or illegal.”
― Martin Jacques
“Unlike the Soviet Communist party, the Chinese Communist party chose to introduce capitalism.”
― Martin Jacques
“The 21st century will be quite unlike the preceding two centuries, in which power was located in Europe and the U.S., and the rest of the world consisted of mere supplicants and bit players.”
― Martin Jacques
“In the aftermath of 9/11 and in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, few questioned the idea that the United States was likely to be the extant superpower for several decades to come. Few anticipated how quickly the neoconservative project would run into the sands – or that China would rise so quickly.”
― Martin Jacques
“Ever since Pele’s extraordinary talents blessed the world of football, black footballers have been accepted in the pantheon of the greats. But to achieve commercial recognition is somewhat different: it requires a form of adulation that also spells identification and role model.”
― Martin Jacques
“Always beware your moment of triumphalism: such emotions are a poor steer on the future.”
― Martin Jacques
“There is a profound hypocrisy – and deep historical ignorance – when Europeans complain about the problems posed by the ethnic and religious minorities in their midst, for that is exactly what European colonial rule meant for peoples around the world.”
― Martin Jacques
“Europe must learn to live in and with the world, not to dominate it nor to assume it is superior or more virtuous.”
― Martin Jacques
“When Europe dominated, there were no or few feedback loops. Or, to put it another way, there were few, if any, consequences for its behaviour towards the non-western world: relations were simply too unequal.”
― Martin Jacques
“For 200 years, the dominant powers have also been the colonial powers: the European countries, the U.S. and Japan. They have never been required to pay their dues for what they did to those whom they possessed and treated with contempt.”
― Martin Jacques
“Ever since the Meiji restoration in 1868, Japan has turned its back on Asia in general and China in particular: its pattern of aggression from 1895 onwards and the colonies that resulted were among the consequences.”
― Martin Jacques
“The reason why China forecasting has such a poor track record is that Westerners constantly invoke the model and experience of the West to explain China, and it is a false prophet. Until we start trying to understand China on its own terms, rather than as a Western-style nation in the making, we will continue to get it wrong.”
― Martin Jacques
“The Internet has been seen in the West as the quintessential expression of the free exchange of ideas and information, untrammeled by government interference and increasingly global in reach. But the Chinese government has shown that the Internet can be successfully filtered and controlled.”
― Martin Jacques
“Google will be obliged either to accept Chinese regulations or exit the world’s largest Internet market, with serious consequences for its long-term global ambitions. This is a metaphor for our times: America’s most dynamic company cannot take on the Chinese government – even on an issue like free and open information – and win.”
― Martin Jacques
“China’s Internet will continue to be policed and controlled, information filtered, sites prohibited, noncompliant search engines excluded, and sensitive search words disallowed. And where China goes, others, also informed by different values, are already and will follow.”
― Martin Jacques
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