"Understanding the Rise of China"

Our native Chinese biz/econ professor told us a few weeks ago that she wanted to show us a video about the Chinese mindset; that seemed fine, but as soon as I heard that all-to-familiar TED intro—something I didn’t realize was a common sound over here—I of course became very interested. And I was not disappointed; this twenty-minute TED Talk by a Martin Jacques gives a very good survey of the increasing influence China will have in the years to come.

His main theme seems to be that China is not like the West, nor will it ever become so; it is a completely different civilization and has been for millennia, and we can’t expect that kind of inertia to succumb to mere decades (well, ok centuries) of Western pressure. Before you take a look at the video, I do feel like I should tell you that the projections Jacques cites at the very beginning are almost certainly wrong—there is a wide spectrum of projections about China’s growth, and he (or the organization he cites) is at the far end of optimistic. It seems that most economists think it will be at least thirty or forty years before China’s GDP matches that of America (and their growth may very well slow because of problems such as these). However even if that is the case, they are still in second place today, and thus of course still incredibly important economically. Enjoy!