British journalist and academic Martin Jacques is best known for his 2009 book When China Rules the World. An unapologetic champion of China’s rise as a “civilisational” power, Jacques believes the Westerners, who have a ‘very poor’ understanding of China as a civilisational state, often fail to understand the reasons behind China’s recent successes. Post’s Purushottam Poudel recently caught up with him on the sidelines of the BOAO forum in Hainan, China, to discuss the various facets of China’s role and place in the modern world. Excerpts.

Most Westerners tend to be harsh critics of China. What makes you such a staunch supporter of the country?

What China has achieved in a short time is remarkable. A country of 1.4 billion people has become the world’s second-largest economy. China has lifted 800 million out of poverty over 40 years, more than the rest of the world combined. This is a considerable contribution not only to China but to the world. Since 2007 China has become the biggest contributor to global growth.

In your 2009 book When China Rules the World you had projected China to overtake the US as the world’s leading economic power by 2027. Has the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the fast changing geopolitical climate made you change your mind?

I can’t exactly remember what I wrote in the book. However, I must have said China’s economy will decline over time as it is not possible to always carry out economic development at the same pace. When a country moves up the ladder of development, it is not possible to maintain the same tempo.

Covid-19 has impacted not only China but also the rest of the world. The economic growth of China in the year 2020 was nearly 2 percent. The following year it grew by 8 percent and this was a bounce-back. However, last year its economy grew by 3 percent. On average, in the past three years, China’s economy grew by 4 percent, which is a decline if we contrast it with the normal years. However, this is not the derailment of China’s growth.

Do I still think China will maintain its growth? This year the estimated growth rate of China is 5.3 percent, which is a conservative estimate. The geopolitical situation, and the American attitude towards China, will have some effect but I cannot say how much.

How do you describe the Chinese approach to world politics?

First, to understand China, you need to think in Chinese and the kind of philosophy that informs China. The ancient Chinese writings are extremely moral. How leaders should be, how they should act, and how a leader should conduct himself. Positivity and moral tone are embedded in China’s ancient philosophy. Confucius says that a leader should model himself as a father in the family. But the tragedy is that most of Western world does not know about Confucius. So they apply Western individualism to analyse China. If one cannot understand this paradigm one cannot understand China. If you read Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speeches you can still feel the fabric of morality in the way of looking at things.

You have of late been talking a lot about Chinese modernity. How does it differ from modernity as understood in the West?

The Western conception of modernity started in Britain and spread across western Europe and later in eastern Europe. The concept has gone through various iterations. Its philosophy and attitude to the rest of the world in my view are based on which is essentially a colonialist perspective.

China has a different view on modernity. For China, modernity starts in developing countries, which is the reason it has forged the concept of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Modernity in the West and China has different meanings because they are the product of two different histories and two different stages of development. They have a distinct conception of the world. In the Chinese view, the world is a single entity, which is not how Westerners see it. For them, the starting point is the nation-state which was created much later after the Treaty of Westphalia.

The profound philosophical difference between the Western and Chinese attitudes is evident in recent Chinese concepts of the Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI) and the Global Development Initiative (GDI). These all contain the view of the world, a global system. This also suggests the country which will lead the world in the coming days will be quite different to the one which is leading the world right now.

Are you suggesting that these initiatives China has forged are the tools for creating a new world order under its leadership?

I think there are several ways to look at this. The way China works is the one way. Second, China only started taking itself seriously as a global power since the rise of Xi Jinping; the country’s presidents before that by and large abided by Deng Xiaoping’s philosophy. The Belt and Road is a fascinating initiative. No other country could have imagined such a mega project. The BRI projects the priority of development under China’s leadership. It is a reflection of China’s global priorities.

China recently brokered dialogue between Iran and Saudi Arabia, two sworn enemies in the Middle East. How did you see this evolution in Chinese diplomacy?

It is indeed a very interesting development. China has entered one of the troublesome regions and a region where American influence is considered high. The agreement came almost out of the blue. One of the long conflicts in the Middle East has been frozen. It shows the potential of China as a conciliator for the developing world. It was also interesting to know that both Iran and Saudi trusted China. This also shows Saudi Arabia moving away from America, and is an illustration of the declining American power. I won’t be surprised if the Iran-Saudi incident creates a ripple of its own in the Middle East.

The Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI) was forwarded by Chinese President Xi Jinping on March 15 during the World Leader Summit. Some say it is aimed at alienating the US, which does not have much history as a civilisation, unlike, say India or China. Is this the right understanding?

There are lots of ways to describe civilisation. We can say civilisation is the long-term notion of history and culture. China has been talking about the notion of inclusive civilisation before this, so in this sense this is not a new idea. If so, what is the GCI about? In my view, it is an alternative to the age of the West. The West only recognised one legitimate culture or civilisation. The Western view of modernity is singular. Everyone who respects history and culture should take the same root of modernity developed by the West.

The Chinese approach is different. There are many cultures and modernity cannot have a singular approach. This is a great dividing line between Chinese and Western thinking. Due to the Western colonisation, many countries lost their histories, owing to which they could not decide who they were. Therefore the GCI is the retrieval of different cultures and histories. This is the major philosophical statement of the future world.

China never thought of itself primarily as a nation-state. It started doing so towards the end of the 19th century when it became weak. It had to adopt some norms accepted by the Western countries. But that was not the essence of China. China emerged as a civilisation some 3,000 years ago and has seen itself as a civilisation since. Therefore China is primarily a civilisation state and only then a nation-state.

Rush Doshi’s famous book The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order to Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of Great Power along with your own book suggest that American power is declining. Asian scholars like Kishor Mahbubani to Parag Khanna are in the same boat. However, it feels like scholars are only considering the economic or military might of America. American dominance in the world is also because of its soft power. When claiming that China will surpass America, what kind of soft power does China have to compete against America?

The American soft power is a long historical project which started in Britain. Though China also has a magnificent history, its soft power is weak compared to that of America. That said, Chinese soft power is increasing. Chinese soft power is like a new kid in the school, it only got formulated in 1978, if a date has to be given. Because of its long history, America is very familiar with the world. America also had the leverage of European history.

The world should not underestimate the extent to which China can influence the world in terms of its soft power. The often-asked question about China concerns its governance style. But then there are as many admirers of its system as there are critics. Importantly, in the past few decades, the Chinese government has been able to transform its promises into a reality.

China’s rise to superpower status is not uncontested, as it faces multiple foes today, especially from the democratic world. How do you see this phenomenon?

China is going to replace the US as the most influential country in the world. But when it comes to the longevity of that status, I am not sure. Even if China becomes the most influential country, it also has to decline someday. Democracy is narrowly conceived. It is a post-Second World War phenomenon. We cannot say the West was essentially democratic in the past, it was unstable and dictatorship was a major characteristic of it. The remarkable thing about China is that for a long time, it was one of the most advanced civilisations in the world. Then it declined and is now reinventing itself. And one day it will decline again. Here you can ask me what Chinese civilisation is all about. It is about reinventing itself over a long historical period.

How do you view the growing polarisation between the US and China over the idea of democracy?

Though I do not buy American President Joe Biden’s “Democracy versus Autocracy” narrative, it is true that countries have started to polarise along ideological lines. But more than democracy it is a propaganda contest.