When China Rules The World

May 9, 2025 7:06 AM

Author:Martin Jacques

China will replace the United States as the world's dominant power. In so doing, it will not become more western but the world will become more Chinese.

Jacques argues that we cannot understand China in western terms but only through its own history and culture. To this end, he introduces a powerful set of ideas including China as a civilization-state, the tributary system, the Chinese idea of race, a very different concept of the state, and the principle of contested modernity.

First published in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim - and controversy - 'When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Rise of a New Global Order' has sold a quarter of a million copies, been translated into eleven languages, nominated for two major literary awards, and has been the subject of an immensely popular TED talk. In the three years since the first edition was published, the book has transformed the debate about China worldwide and proved remarkably prescient.In this greatly expanded and fully updated paperback edition, with nearly three-hundred pages of new material backed up by the latest statistical data, Martin Jacques renews his assault on conventional thinking about China's ascendancy, showing how its impact will be as much political and cultural as economic, thereby transforming the world as we know it.

Martin Jacques is one of Britain's foremost public intellectuals. A Visiting Senior Research Fellow at IDEAS, the London School of Economics' centre for diplomacy and grand strategy, a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and a Fellow of the Transatlantic Academy, Washington DC, Martin Jacques is widely respected as a leading global expert on what could prove to be the most important geopolitical event of the past 200 years: the rise of China. He was editor of Marxism Today from 1977 until the journal's closure in 1991, and has also worked as deputy editor of The Independent. He has been a columnist for the Times, the Guardian, the Observer, and the New Statesman, as well as writing for international publications such as the Financial Times, Economist, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Daily Beast, Volkskrant, Corriere della Sera, L'Unita, South China Morning Post, and Folha Des Paulo.

Reviews

A compelling and clear narrative about the financial crisis and its implications.

—— City AM

Brummer builds a racy transatlantic narrative out of the crisis ...

—— Guardian

... he brings a journalist's relish to his task of revealing everything you wanted to know about the credit crunch but were too affraid to ask ... reads like a thriller - except that order is not restored on the final page.

—— Observer

This is the roller-coaster version of events - and a surprisingly entertaining book about an otherwise dreary subject ... timely and interesting

—— New Statesman

... a handy first draft of history.

—— Bloomberg

Terrifying and superbly told

—— Daily Telegraph

Genius

—— Sunday Times

Compelling and horrifying

—— GQ

A more than worthy successor to Liar's Poker ... if you want to know about the origins of the credit crunch, and the extraordinary cast of misfits, visionaries and chancers who made money from the crash, there's no more readable account

—— Daily Telegraph

A triumph ... riveting ... a genuine page-turner

—— Times

The very best book about this whole affair

—— John Lanchester, author of 'Whoops!'

If you read only one book about the causes of the recent financial crisis, let it be Michael Lewis's The Big Short

—— Washington Post

In the hands of Michael Lewis, anything is possible ... if you want to know how a nation lost its financial mind - and have a good laugh finding out - this is the book to read.

—— The Sunday Times

Magnificent ... a perfect storm of brilliant writer meeting big subject.

—— The Guardian

A great book for anyone interested in inspiring and managing creative talent (Books of the Year)

—— Financial Times , Lionel Barber, Editor of the Financial Times

In this riveting, well-written expose, Shaxson goes deep into the largely unexamined realm of offshore money. In the process, he reveals that this shadow world is no mere sideshow, but is troublingly central to modern finance, with the US and the UK as leaders. The resulting abuses are widespread, ranging from tax revenue stripping from African nations to individuals and corporations escaping enforcement and accountability. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the hidden reasons why financial services firms have become so powerful and impossible to reform

—— Yves Smith, creator of Naked Capitalism and author of Econned

They who sold us globalisation as a way of the whole world getting richer with fair rules, cheated us by letting the rich and powerful go "offshore". This gripping exposé should help end the scandal

—— Anthony Barnett, founder of openDemocracy

Possibly the most important political book that I have read since The Spirit Level

—— Stuart Weir, co-founder of Charter 88, former editor of the New Statesman

He has prised the lid off an important and terrifying can of worms

—— Martin Vander Weyer , Literary Review

Lively and well written book

—— Toby Young , Mail on Sunday

A welcome account of how the sun is never allowed to set on the British empire's old islands, whose fiscal pirates hoard the tax-free treasures of the rich

—— Geoffrey Robertson , New Statesman, Books of the Year

Shaxson delves into capitalism's secret nooks and tells us about how a culture of secrecy can perpetuate itself. Very interesting

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

A compelling read [...] an important and very much a live topic, it'll take you a few hours to read the book but it will be a worthwhile investment of time

—— Peter Magee , Bookbag

What makes this such a good read for the layman is that the author employs all his journalistic skill (he used to work at Reuters) to illustrate his arguments and uses real examples to real examples to illustrate complex issues

—— John Arlidge , Sunday Times

This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the world we live in

—— Brian Maye , Irish Times

This engrossing book about the offshore banking racket, with its eye-opening scrutiny of tax havens and the suited scoundrels who profit from them, will make you think again about the murkier side of the City...This first-rate forensic work ends with a plea that the closed City "must be abolished and submerged into a...fully democratic London"

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

[An] informed polemic against finance capital

—— Oliver Kamm , The Times

Now more than a decade old, this is still the best introduction to the world of tax havens

—— Economist, *Summer Reads of 2022*

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