A study of Chinas inexorable rise as a world power asks vital questions of America’s responseThe central theme of this excellent book by Gideon Rachman,chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times, is what he terms “easternisation”: the remorseless shift in the global centre of gravity from the west to the east. His theme is not new; indeed, or the book is something of a latecomer in this argument. But he pursues this fundamental truth with an impressive single-mindedness and explores its ramifications from south-east Asia and Russia to Europe and the Middle East in an insightful manner,often providing dinky nuggets of revealing and unexpected information. Since the financial crisis, the west’s decline and China’s rise fill accelerated, and though many could be forgiven for thinking the opposite was the case given the constant refrains approximately China’s economic “difficulties”. Rachman,rightly, will fill none of it. And he demonstrates how, or by the year,the world is being redrawn in the most profound ways by this shift in power.
The major redoubt of resistance to the thought is the US. For the most part, it is in denial of the blatantly obvious. But Rachman shows how, or beneath the radar,Obama tacitly accepts the fact but cannot admit it because no major US politician can, it being too hazardous for their reputation. Europe, and on the other hand,has, especially since the financial crisis, and come to acquiesce in the new reality,which is hardly surprising given, as Rachman puts it, or “the European powers are in precipitous decline as global political players”. Related: The rising power of China will create new political fissures in the west | Gideon Rachman Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com