Just Finished Reading: Modern China – A Very Short Introduction by Rana Mitter (FP: 2008)

There are two things in the 21st century that cannot be ignored and will probably define the period – Global Warming and the rise of China as a global power. Despite its present slowdown (though still galloping ahead in global terms) in the next 50 years it will most likely have surpassed all other nations in economic and quite possibly military terms to be the top global superpower with everything that means to the rest of us. For many, many reasons China is the place to watch and the more we know about it the better. This short introduction (only 140 pages) is a great little place to start.

Running historically from the enforced opening of trade by the European powers in the 19th century, through the Boxer Rebellion, crisis, famine, civil war and the rise of Communism to the present economic ‘miracle’ the author tries (and in my opinion more than succeeds) to give an impression of what China has gone through in the last 150 years to get where it is today. The route has been far from easy and far indeed from a straight line from past to present (and into the future) but it goes a long way to explain the why of things as well as the how of things. There can be little argument that, especially with around 1/6 of the world’s population within its borders China is a behemoth to be reckoned with. It’s likely that, when the present focus on the Middle East fades into the background, China will be entrenched across most, if not all, of the Far East and, it would seem, a significant portion of Africa. China, unlike the worlds democracies, looks decades ahead and plans accordingly. When we finally shift our focus to the resource rich poor nations of the world we will find that the Chinese are already there and have been for years if not decades before us.

In the future multipolar world (who would’ve thought that the Cold War certainty could feel so cosy now) China will be a serious player in every corner of the world. It will demand respect and have the economic and military power to back up that demand. Personally I think that if you have children you should be encouraging them to learn what will probably be the second language of the 21st and maybe the dominant language of the 22nd century – Chinese. You could do a lot worse that start educating yourself with this book and following up with reading some examples from its short bibliography. More on China to come.