Martin Jacques
Martin Jacques
Martin Jacquesis a British journalist and academic...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionJournalist
china constantly continue experience explain false model nation poor rather record track trying understand until westerners
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.
experience primarily shaped state west whereas
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.
china drawing experience looking seem simply understand using western
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.
available bad careers childcare children expensive experience hire instead latest lives plenty precious shower time
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.
boy chief difficult experience far father forget lone lost ministers mother parenting prime year
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.
economic great malaysia muslim star
Without doubt, Malaysia is the great economic star of the Muslim world.
blair finally grand less relief time tories wholesome
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.
consequences few relations simply towards
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.
believed blair built country regarded worshipped
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.
closely government hugely labour linked main outset seen timid
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.
blair board edges except labour possible regarded retain seeking taken time
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.
almost behaviour behind believe interest invariably justify lies major power reason rhetoric seeks vigorous west
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.
actions begins effect enjoyed global growing morality power scrutiny subject west
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.
both bush courage emerged european france iraq nations oppose
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.