Understanding the rise of China | Martin Jacques

2,400,404 views ・ 2011-01-24

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:15
The world is changing
0
15260
2000
00:17
with really remarkable speed.
1
17260
3000
00:20
If you look at the chart at the top here,
2
20260
2000
00:22
you'll see that in 2025,
3
22260
2000
00:24
these Goldman Sachs projections
4
24260
2000
00:26
suggest that the Chinese economy
5
26260
2000
00:28
will be almost the same size as the American economy.
6
28260
3000
00:31
And if you look at the chart
7
31260
3000
00:34
for 2050,
8
34260
2000
00:36
it's projected that the Chinese economy
9
36260
3000
00:39
will be twice the size of the American economy,
10
39260
3000
00:42
and the Indian economy will be almost the same size
11
42260
2000
00:44
as the American economy.
12
44260
3000
00:47
And we should bear in mind here
13
47260
2000
00:49
that these projections were drawn up
14
49260
2000
00:51
before the Western financial crisis.
15
51260
3000
00:54
A couple of weeks ago,
16
54260
2000
00:56
I was looking at the latest projection
17
56260
2000
00:58
by BNP Paribas
18
58260
2000
01:00
for when China
19
60260
3000
01:03
will have a larger economy
20
63260
2000
01:05
than the United States.
21
65260
2000
01:07
Goldman Sachs projected 2027.
22
67260
4000
01:11
The post-crisis projection
23
71260
3000
01:14
is 2020.
24
74260
3000
01:17
That's just a decade away.
25
77260
2000
01:19
China is going to change the world
26
79260
4000
01:23
in two fundamental respects.
27
83260
3000
01:26
First of all,
28
86260
2000
01:28
it's a huge developing country
29
88260
2000
01:30
with a population of 1.3 billion people,
30
90260
4000
01:34
which has been growing for over 30 years
31
94260
3000
01:37
at around 10 percent a year.
32
97260
2000
01:39
And within a decade,
33
99260
2000
01:41
it will have the largest economy in the world.
34
101260
4000
01:45
Never before in the modern era
35
105260
3000
01:48
has the largest economy in the world
36
108260
3000
01:51
been that of a developing country,
37
111260
2000
01:53
rather than a developed country.
38
113260
3000
01:57
Secondly,
39
117260
2000
01:59
for the first time in the modern era,
40
119260
2000
02:01
the dominant country in the world --
41
121260
2000
02:03
which I think is what China will become --
42
123260
3000
02:06
will be not from the West
43
126260
3000
02:09
and from very, very different civilizational roots.
44
129260
4000
02:13
Now, I know it's a widespread assumption in the West
45
133260
4000
02:17
that as countries modernize,
46
137260
3000
02:20
they also westernize.
47
140260
2000
02:22
This is an illusion.
48
142260
2000
02:24
It's an assumption that modernity
49
144260
2000
02:26
is a product simply of competition, markets and technology.
50
146260
3000
02:29
It is not. It is also shaped equally
51
149260
2000
02:31
by history and culture.
52
151260
2000
02:33
China is not like the West,
53
153260
3000
02:36
and it will not become like the West.
54
156260
3000
02:39
It will remain in very fundamental respects
55
159260
2000
02:41
very different.
56
161260
2000
02:43
Now the big question here is obviously,
57
163260
3000
02:46
how do we make sense of China?
58
166260
2000
02:48
How do we try to understand what China is?
59
168260
2000
02:50
And the problem we have in the West at the moment, by and large,
60
170260
3000
02:53
is that the conventional approach
61
173260
2000
02:55
is that we understand it really in Western terms,
62
175260
2000
02:57
using Western ideas.
63
177260
3000
03:00
We can't.
64
180260
2000
03:02
Now I want to offer you
65
182260
2000
03:04
three building blocks
66
184260
2000
03:06
for trying to understand what China is like,
67
186260
3000
03:09
just as a beginning.
68
189260
2000
03:11
The first is this:
69
191260
2000
03:13
that China is not really a nation-state.
70
193260
3000
03:16
Okay, it's called itself a nation-state
71
196260
2000
03:18
for the last hundred years,
72
198260
2000
03:20
but everyone who knows anything about China
73
200260
2000
03:22
knows it's a lot older than this.
74
202260
2000
03:24
This was what China looked like with the victory of the Qin Dynasty
75
204260
3000
03:27
in 221 B.C. at the end of the warring-state period --
76
207260
3000
03:30
the birth of modern China.
77
210260
2000
03:32
And you can see it against the boundaries of modern China.
78
212260
3000
03:35
Or immediately afterward, the Han Dynasty,
79
215260
2000
03:37
still 2,000 years ago.
80
217260
2000
03:39
And you can see already it occupies
81
219260
2000
03:41
most of what we now know as Eastern China,
82
221260
2000
03:43
which is where the vast majority of Chinese lived then
83
223260
3000
03:46
and live now.
84
226260
2000
03:48
Now what is extraordinary about this
85
228260
2000
03:50
is, what gives China its sense of being China,
86
230260
3000
03:53
what gives the Chinese
87
233260
3000
03:56
the sense of what it is to be Chinese,
88
236260
3000
03:59
comes not from the last hundred years,
89
239260
2000
04:01
not from the nation-state period,
90
241260
2000
04:03
which is what happened in the West,
91
243260
3000
04:06
but from the period, if you like,
92
246260
2000
04:08
of the civilization-state.
93
248260
2000
04:10
I'm thinking here, for example,
94
250260
3000
04:13
of customs like ancestral worship,
95
253260
3000
04:16
of a very distinctive notion of the state,
96
256260
3000
04:19
likewise, a very distinctive notion of the family,
97
259260
3000
04:22
social relationships like guanxi,
98
262260
2000
04:24
Confucian values and so on.
99
264260
2000
04:26
These are all things that come
100
266260
2000
04:28
from the period of the civilization-state.
101
268260
3000
04:31
In other words, China, unlike the Western states and most countries in the world,
102
271260
3000
04:34
is shaped by its sense of civilization,
103
274260
3000
04:37
its existence as a civilization-state,
104
277260
2000
04:39
rather than as a nation-state.
105
279260
2000
04:41
And there's one other thing to add to this, and that is this:
106
281260
3000
04:44
Of course we know China's big, huge,
107
284260
2000
04:46
demographically and geographically,
108
286260
3000
04:49
with a population of 1.3 billion people.
109
289260
3000
04:52
What we often aren't really aware of
110
292260
3000
04:55
is the fact
111
295260
2000
04:57
that China is extremely diverse
112
297260
2000
04:59
and very pluralistic,
113
299260
2000
05:01
and in many ways very decentralized.
114
301260
2000
05:03
You can't run a place on this scale simply from Beijing,
115
303260
3000
05:06
even though we think this to be the case.
116
306260
3000
05:09
It's never been the case.
117
309260
3000
05:13
So this is China, a civilization-state,
118
313260
2000
05:15
rather than a nation-state.
119
315260
2000
05:17
And what does it mean?
120
317260
2000
05:19
Well, I think it has all sorts of profound implications.
121
319260
2000
05:21
I'll give you two quick ones.
122
321260
2000
05:23
The first is that
123
323260
2000
05:25
the most important political value for the Chinese
124
325260
4000
05:29
is unity,
125
329260
2000
05:31
is the maintenance
126
331260
2000
05:33
of Chinese civilization.
127
333260
2000
05:35
You know, 2,000 years ago, Europe:
128
335260
3000
05:38
breakdown -- the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire.
129
338260
3000
05:41
It divided, and it's remained divided ever since.
130
341260
3000
05:44
China, over the same time period,
131
344260
2000
05:46
went in exactly the opposite direction,
132
346260
2000
05:48
very painfully holding this huge civilization,
133
348260
3000
05:51
civilization-state, together.
134
351260
3000
05:54
The second
135
354260
2000
05:56
is maybe more prosaic,
136
356260
2000
05:58
which is Hong Kong.
137
358260
2000
06:00
Do you remember the handover of Hong Kong
138
360260
3000
06:03
by Britain to China in 1997?
139
363260
2000
06:05
You may remember
140
365260
2000
06:07
what the Chinese constitutional proposition was.
141
367260
2000
06:09
One country, two systems.
142
369260
2000
06:11
And I'll lay a wager
143
371260
2000
06:13
that barely anyone in the West believed them.
144
373260
2000
06:15
"Window dressing.
145
375260
2000
06:17
When China gets its hands on Hong Kong,
146
377260
2000
06:19
that won't be the case."
147
379260
2000
06:21
Thirteen years on,
148
381260
2000
06:23
the political and legal system in Hong Kong
149
383260
2000
06:25
is as different now as it was in 1997.
150
385260
3000
06:28
We were wrong. Why were we wrong?
151
388260
3000
06:31
We were wrong because we thought, naturally enough,
152
391260
3000
06:34
in nation-state ways.
153
394260
2000
06:36
Think of German unification, 1990.
154
396260
2000
06:38
What happened?
155
398260
2000
06:40
Well, basically the East was swallowed by the West.
156
400260
2000
06:42
One nation, one system.
157
402260
2000
06:44
That is the nation-state mentality.
158
404260
3000
06:47
But you can't run a country like China,
159
407260
3000
06:50
a civilization-state,
160
410260
2000
06:52
on the basis of one civilization, one system.
161
412260
3000
06:55
It doesn't work.
162
415260
2000
06:57
So actually the response of China
163
417260
3000
07:00
to the question of Hong Kong --
164
420260
2000
07:02
as it will be to the question of Taiwan --
165
422260
2000
07:04
was a natural response:
166
424260
2000
07:06
one civilization, many systems.
167
426260
3000
07:09
Let me offer you another building block
168
429260
2000
07:11
to try and understand China --
169
431260
2000
07:13
maybe not sort of a comfortable one.
170
433260
3000
07:16
The Chinese have a very, very different
171
436260
2000
07:18
conception of race
172
438260
2000
07:20
to most other countries.
173
440260
3000
07:23
Do you know,
174
443260
2000
07:25
of the 1.3 billion Chinese,
175
445260
3000
07:28
over 90 percent of them
176
448260
2000
07:30
think they belong to the same race,
177
450260
3000
07:33
the Han?
178
453260
2000
07:35
Now, this is completely different
179
455260
2000
07:37
from the world's [other] most populous countries.
180
457260
3000
07:40
India, the United States,
181
460260
2000
07:42
Indonesia, Brazil --
182
462260
3000
07:45
all of them are multiracial.
183
465260
3000
07:48
The Chinese don't feel like that.
184
468260
3000
07:51
China is only multiracial
185
471260
2000
07:53
really at the margins.
186
473260
3000
07:56
So the question is, why?
187
476260
2000
07:58
Well the reason, I think, essentially
188
478260
2000
08:00
is, again, back to the civilization-state.
189
480260
3000
08:03
A history of at least 2,000 years,
190
483260
3000
08:06
a history of conquest, occupation,
191
486260
2000
08:08
absorption, assimilation and so on,
192
488260
2000
08:10
led to the process by which,
193
490260
2000
08:12
over time, this notion of the Han emerged --
194
492260
3000
08:15
of course, nurtured
195
495260
2000
08:17
by a growing and very powerful sense
196
497260
3000
08:20
of cultural identity.
197
500260
3000
08:23
Now the great advantage of this historical experience
198
503260
3000
08:26
has been that, without the Han,
199
506260
4000
08:30
China could never have held together.
200
510260
2000
08:32
The Han identity has been the cement
201
512260
3000
08:35
which has held this country together.
202
515260
3000
08:38
The great disadvantage of it
203
518260
2000
08:40
is that the Han have a very weak conception
204
520260
2000
08:42
of cultural difference.
205
522260
2000
08:44
They really believe
206
524260
3000
08:47
in their own superiority,
207
527260
2000
08:49
and they are disrespectful
208
529260
2000
08:51
of those who are not.
209
531260
2000
08:53
Hence their attitude, for example,
210
533260
2000
08:55
to the Uyghurs and to the Tibetans.
211
535260
3000
08:59
Or let me give you my third building block,
212
539260
2000
09:01
the Chinese state.
213
541260
2000
09:03
Now the relationship
214
543260
2000
09:05
between the state and society in China
215
545260
3000
09:08
is very different from that in the West.
216
548260
3000
09:12
Now we in the West
217
552260
2000
09:14
overwhelmingly seem to think -- in these days at least --
218
554260
2000
09:16
that the authority and legitimacy of the state
219
556260
4000
09:20
is a function of democracy.
220
560260
3000
09:23
The problem with this proposition
221
563260
2000
09:25
is that the Chinese state
222
565260
4000
09:29
enjoys more legitimacy
223
569260
2000
09:31
and more authority
224
571260
2000
09:33
amongst the Chinese
225
573260
3000
09:36
than is true
226
576260
2000
09:38
with any Western state.
227
578260
3000
09:42
And the reason for this
228
582260
2000
09:44
is because --
229
584260
2000
09:46
well, there are two reasons, I think.
230
586260
2000
09:48
And it's obviously got nothing to do with democracy,
231
588260
2000
09:50
because in our terms the Chinese certainly don't have a democracy.
232
590260
3000
09:53
And the reason for this is,
233
593260
2000
09:55
firstly, because the state in China
234
595260
3000
09:58
is given a very special --
235
598260
3000
10:01
it enjoys a very special significance
236
601260
2000
10:03
as the representative,
237
603260
2000
10:05
the embodiment and the guardian
238
605260
3000
10:08
of Chinese civilization,
239
608260
2000
10:10
of the civilization-state.
240
610260
3000
10:13
This is as close as China gets
241
613260
2000
10:15
to a kind of spiritual role.
242
615260
3000
10:19
And the second reason is because,
243
619260
2000
10:21
whereas in Europe
244
621260
2000
10:23
and North America,
245
623260
2000
10:25
the state's power is continuously challenged --
246
625260
3000
10:28
I mean in the European tradition,
247
628260
2000
10:30
historically against the church,
248
630260
2000
10:32
against other sectors of the aristocracy,
249
632260
2000
10:34
against merchants and so on --
250
634260
2000
10:36
for 1,000 years,
251
636260
2000
10:38
the power of the Chinese state
252
638260
2000
10:40
has not been challenged.
253
640260
2000
10:42
It's had no serious rivals.
254
642260
3000
10:46
So you can see
255
646260
2000
10:48
that the way in which power has been constructed in China
256
648260
4000
10:52
is very different from our experience
257
652260
2000
10:54
in Western history.
258
654260
3000
10:57
The result, by the way,
259
657260
2000
10:59
is that the Chinese have a very different view of the state.
260
659260
4000
11:04
Whereas we tend to view it as an intruder,
261
664260
3000
11:07
a stranger,
262
667260
3000
11:10
certainly an organ
263
670260
2000
11:12
whose powers need to be limited
264
672260
3000
11:15
or defined and constrained,
265
675260
2000
11:17
the Chinese don't see the state like that at all.
266
677260
2000
11:19
The Chinese view the state
267
679260
3000
11:22
as an intimate -- not just as an intimate actually,
268
682260
3000
11:25
as a member of the family --
269
685260
2000
11:27
not just in fact as a member of the family,
270
687260
2000
11:29
but as the head of the family,
271
689260
2000
11:31
the patriarch of the family.
272
691260
2000
11:33
This is the Chinese view of the state --
273
693260
3000
11:36
very, very different to ours.
274
696260
2000
11:38
It's embedded in society in a different kind of way
275
698260
3000
11:41
to what is the case
276
701260
2000
11:43
in the West.
277
703260
2000
11:45
And I would suggest to you that actually what we are dealing with here,
278
705260
3000
11:48
in the Chinese context,
279
708260
3000
11:51
is a new kind of paradigm,
280
711260
2000
11:53
which is different from anything
281
713260
2000
11:55
we've had to think about in the past.
282
715260
3000
11:59
Know that China believes in the market and the state.
283
719260
3000
12:02
I mean, Adam Smith,
284
722260
2000
12:04
already writing in the late 18th century, said,
285
724260
3000
12:07
"The Chinese market is larger and more developed
286
727260
2000
12:09
and more sophisticated
287
729260
2000
12:11
than anything in Europe."
288
731260
2000
12:13
And, apart from the Mao period,
289
733260
2000
12:15
that has remained more or less the case ever since.
290
735260
2000
12:17
But this is combined
291
737260
2000
12:19
with an extremely strong and ubiquitous state.
292
739260
4000
12:23
The state is everywhere in China.
293
743260
2000
12:25
I mean, it's leading firms --
294
745260
2000
12:27
many of them are still publicly owned.
295
747260
3000
12:30
Private firms, however large they are, like Lenovo,
296
750260
3000
12:33
depend in many ways on state patronage.
297
753260
2000
12:35
Targets for the economy and so on
298
755260
2000
12:37
are set by the state.
299
757260
2000
12:39
And the state, of course, its authority flows into lots of other areas --
300
759260
2000
12:41
as we are familiar with --
301
761260
2000
12:43
with something like the one-child policy.
302
763260
2000
12:45
Moreover, this is a very old state tradition,
303
765260
3000
12:48
a very old tradition of statecraft.
304
768260
2000
12:50
I mean, if you want an illustration of this,
305
770260
3000
12:53
the Great Wall is one.
306
773260
2000
12:55
But this is another, this is the Grand Canal,
307
775260
2000
12:57
which was constructed in the first instance
308
777260
2000
12:59
in the fifth century B.C.
309
779260
2000
13:01
and was finally completed
310
781260
2000
13:03
in the seventh century A.D.
311
783260
2000
13:05
It went for 1,114 miles,
312
785260
4000
13:09
linking Beijing
313
789260
2000
13:11
with Hangzhou and Shanghai.
314
791260
3000
13:14
So there's a long history
315
794260
2000
13:16
of extraordinary state infrastructural projects
316
796260
3000
13:19
in China,
317
799260
2000
13:21
which I suppose helps us to explain what we see today,
318
801260
3000
13:24
which is something like the Three Gorges Dam
319
804260
2000
13:26
and many other expressions
320
806260
2000
13:28
of state competence
321
808260
2000
13:30
within China.
322
810260
2000
13:32
So there we have three building blocks
323
812260
3000
13:35
for trying to understand the difference that is China --
324
815260
3000
13:38
the civilization-state,
325
818260
3000
13:41
the notion of race
326
821260
2000
13:43
and the nature of the state
327
823260
2000
13:45
and its relationship to society.
328
825260
3000
13:48
And yet we still insist, by and large,
329
828260
3000
13:51
in thinking that we can understand China
330
831260
4000
13:55
by simply drawing on Western experience,
331
835260
3000
13:58
looking at it through Western eyes,
332
838260
3000
14:01
using Western concepts.
333
841260
2000
14:03
If you want to know why
334
843260
2000
14:05
we unerringly seem to get China wrong --
335
845260
3000
14:08
our predictions about what's going to happen to China are incorrect --
336
848260
3000
14:11
this is the reason.
337
851260
4000
14:15
Unfortunately, I think,
338
855260
2000
14:17
I have to say that I think
339
857260
3000
14:20
attitude towards China
340
860260
2000
14:22
is that of a kind of little Westerner mentality.
341
862260
3000
14:25
It's kind of arrogant.
342
865260
2000
14:27
It's arrogant in the sense
343
867260
2000
14:29
that we think that we are best,
344
869260
2000
14:31
and therefore we have the universal measure.
345
871260
3000
14:35
And secondly, it's ignorant.
346
875260
2000
14:37
We refuse to really address
347
877260
3000
14:40
the issue of difference.
348
880260
2000
14:42
You know, there's a very interesting passage
349
882260
2000
14:44
in a book by Paul Cohen, the American historian.
350
884260
3000
14:47
And Paul Cohen argues
351
887260
3000
14:50
that the West thinks of itself
352
890260
4000
14:54
as probably the most cosmopolitan
353
894260
2000
14:56
of all cultures.
354
896260
2000
14:58
But it's not.
355
898260
2000
15:00
In many ways,
356
900260
2000
15:02
it's the most parochial,
357
902260
2000
15:04
because for 200 years,
358
904260
3000
15:07
the West has been so dominant in the world
359
907260
3000
15:10
that it's not really needed
360
910260
2000
15:12
to understand other cultures,
361
912260
3000
15:15
other civilizations.
362
915260
2000
15:17
Because, at the end of the day,
363
917260
2000
15:19
it could, if necessary by force,
364
919260
3000
15:22
get its own way.
365
922260
2000
15:24
Whereas those cultures --
366
924260
2000
15:26
virtually the rest of the world, in fact,
367
926260
3000
15:29
which have been in a far weaker position, vis-a-vis the West --
368
929260
3000
15:32
have been thereby forced to understand the West,
369
932260
3000
15:35
because of the West's presence in those societies.
370
935260
3000
15:38
And therefore, they are, as a result,
371
938260
3000
15:41
more cosmopolitan in many ways than the West.
372
941260
3000
15:44
I mean, take the question of East Asia.
373
944260
2000
15:46
East Asia: Japan, Korea, China, etc. --
374
946260
3000
15:49
a third of the world's population lives there.
375
949260
2000
15:51
Now the largest economic region in the world.
376
951260
2000
15:53
And I'll tell you now,
377
953260
2000
15:55
that East Asianers, people from East Asia,
378
955260
2000
15:57
are far more knowledgeable
379
957260
2000
15:59
about the West
380
959260
2000
16:01
than the West is about East Asia.
381
961260
4000
16:05
Now this point is very germane, I'm afraid,
382
965260
3000
16:08
to the present.
383
968260
2000
16:10
Because what's happening? Back to that chart at the beginning,
384
970260
3000
16:13
the Goldman Sachs chart.
385
973260
2000
16:15
What is happening
386
975260
2000
16:17
is that, very rapidly in historical terms,
387
977260
3000
16:20
the world is being driven
388
980260
3000
16:23
and shaped,
389
983260
2000
16:25
not by the old developed countries,
390
985260
2000
16:27
but by the developing world.
391
987260
2000
16:29
We've seen this
392
989260
2000
16:31
in terms of the G20
393
991260
2000
16:33
usurping very rapidly the position of the G7,
394
993260
3000
16:36
or the G8.
395
996260
3000
16:40
And there are two consequences of this.
396
1000260
3000
16:43
First, the West
397
1003260
2000
16:45
is rapidly losing
398
1005260
2000
16:47
its influence in the world.
399
1007260
2000
16:49
There was a dramatic illustration of this actually a year ago --
400
1009260
3000
16:52
Copenhagen, climate change conference.
401
1012260
2000
16:54
Europe was not at the final negotiating table.
402
1014260
2000
16:56
When did that last happen?
403
1016260
2000
16:58
I would wager it was probably about 200 years ago.
404
1018260
3000
17:01
And that is what is going to happen in the future.
405
1021260
3000
17:04
And the second implication
406
1024260
2000
17:06
is that the world will inevitably, as a consequence,
407
1026260
3000
17:09
become increasingly unfamiliar to us,
408
1029260
4000
17:13
because it'll be shaped by cultures and experiences and histories
409
1033260
3000
17:16
that we are not really familiar with,
410
1036260
3000
17:19
or conversant with.
411
1039260
2000
17:21
And at last, I'm afraid -- take Europe;
412
1041260
2000
17:23
America is slightly different --
413
1043260
2000
17:25
but Europeans by and large, I have to say,
414
1045260
3000
17:28
are ignorant,
415
1048260
3000
17:31
are unaware
416
1051260
2000
17:33
about the way the world is changing.
417
1053260
3000
17:36
Some people -- I've got an English friend in China,
418
1056260
3000
17:39
and he said, "The continent is sleepwalking into oblivion."
419
1059260
3000
17:44
Well, maybe that's true,
420
1064260
2000
17:46
maybe that's an exaggeration.
421
1066260
2000
17:48
But there's another problem which goes along with this --
422
1068260
3000
17:51
that Europe is increasingly out of touch with the world --
423
1071260
3000
17:54
and that is a sort of
424
1074260
3000
17:57
loss of a sense of the future.
425
1077260
2000
17:59
I mean, Europe once, of course, once commanded the future
426
1079260
3000
18:02
in its confidence.
427
1082260
2000
18:04
Take the 19th century, for example.
428
1084260
3000
18:07
But this, alas, is no longer true.
429
1087260
3000
18:10
If you want to feel the future, if you want to taste the future,
430
1090260
3000
18:13
try China -- there's old Confucius.
431
1093260
3000
18:16
This is a railway station
432
1096260
2000
18:18
the likes of which you've never seen before.
433
1098260
2000
18:20
It doesn't even look like a railway station.
434
1100260
2000
18:22
This is the new [Wuhan] railway station
435
1102260
2000
18:24
for the high-speed trains.
436
1104260
2000
18:26
China already has a bigger network
437
1106260
2000
18:28
than any other country in the world
438
1108260
2000
18:30
and will soon have more than all the rest of the world put together.
439
1110260
4000
18:34
Or take this: now this is an idea,
440
1114260
2000
18:36
but it's an idea to be tried out shortly
441
1116260
3000
18:39
in a suburb of Beijing.
442
1119260
2000
18:41
Here you have a megabus,
443
1121260
3000
18:44
on the upper deck carries about 2,000 people.
444
1124260
3000
18:47
It travels on rails
445
1127260
2000
18:49
down a suburban road,
446
1129260
2000
18:51
and the cars travel underneath it.
447
1131260
3000
18:54
And it does speeds of up to about 100 miles an hour.
448
1134260
3000
18:57
Now this is the way things are going to move,
449
1137260
3000
19:00
because China has a very specific problem,
450
1140260
2000
19:02
which is different from Europe
451
1142260
2000
19:04
and different from the United States:
452
1144260
2000
19:06
China has huge numbers of people and no space.
453
1146260
3000
19:09
So this is a solution to a situation
454
1149260
2000
19:11
where China's going to have
455
1151260
2000
19:13
many, many, many cities
456
1153260
2000
19:15
over 20 million people.
457
1155260
2000
19:17
Okay, so how would I like to finish?
458
1157260
3000
19:20
Well, what should our attitude be
459
1160260
3000
19:23
towards this world
460
1163260
3000
19:26
that we see
461
1166260
2000
19:28
very rapidly developing
462
1168260
2000
19:30
before us?
463
1170260
2000
19:33
I think there will be good things about it and there will be bad things about it.
464
1173260
3000
19:36
But I want to argue, above all,
465
1176260
2000
19:38
a big-picture positive for this world.
466
1178260
3000
19:43
For 200 years,
467
1183260
2000
19:45
the world was essentially governed
468
1185260
6000
19:51
by a fragment of the human population.
469
1191260
4000
19:55
That's what Europe and North America represented.
470
1195260
4000
19:59
The arrival of countries
471
1199260
2000
20:01
like China and India --
472
1201260
2000
20:03
between them 38 percent of the world's population --
473
1203260
2000
20:05
and others like Indonesia and Brazil and so on,
474
1205260
3000
20:11
represent the most important single act
475
1211260
3000
20:14
of democratization
476
1214260
2000
20:16
in the last 200 years.
477
1216260
2000
20:18
Civilizations and cultures,
478
1218260
2000
20:20
which had been ignored, which had no voice,
479
1220260
3000
20:23
which were not listened to, which were not known about,
480
1223260
2000
20:25
will have a different sort
481
1225260
2000
20:27
of representation in this world.
482
1227260
3000
20:30
As humanists, we must welcome, surely,
483
1230260
2000
20:32
this transformation,
484
1232260
2000
20:34
and we will have to learn
485
1234260
2000
20:36
about these civilizations.
486
1236260
2000
20:38
This big ship here
487
1238260
3000
20:41
was the one sailed in by Zheng He
488
1241260
2000
20:43
in the early 15th century
489
1243260
2000
20:45
on his great voyages
490
1245260
2000
20:47
around the South China Sea, the East China Sea
491
1247260
3000
20:50
and across the Indian Ocean to East Africa.
492
1250260
3000
20:53
The little boat in front of it
493
1253260
4000
20:57
was the one in which, 80 years later,
494
1257260
2000
20:59
Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic.
495
1259260
3000
21:02
(Laughter)
496
1262260
2000
21:04
Or, look carefully
497
1264260
2000
21:06
at this silk scroll
498
1266260
2000
21:08
made by ZhuZhou
499
1268260
3000
21:11
in 1368.
500
1271260
3000
21:14
I think they're playing golf.
501
1274260
2000
21:16
Christ, the Chinese even invented golf.
502
1276260
3000
21:19
Welcome to the future. Thank you.
503
1279260
3000
21:22
(Applause)
504
1282260
3000
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7