Martin Jacques, senior fellow at Cambridge University. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Martin Jacques, a senior fellow at Cambridge University, said that China now contributes more to global growth than any other country. He added it has taken the baton from the United States and become the leader of the global economy.

“If you subtract China or take China out of the growth of the (global) economy, the growth picture would be very different. Everywhere, every country, would be poorer if China hadn’t made this extraordinary contribution,” he said at the annual Boao Forum for Asia, in Boao, in China’s southern island province of Hainan.

As China has now arrived, in key areas, more or less at the same technological level as the most advanced countries in the world, it is no longer depending on adaption as before. He noted that the question being posed now is what the next stage of modernization will be like

More importantly, he said that China has offered a new model of modernization rather than the “universal” Western model. He also expressed views similar to those of some other experts that Chinese modernization has the universal features of modernization while incorporating some elements suited to China’s conditions.

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He said that in the 19th century, at a time when there were only a few industrialized countries, the growth of the US economy made a big contribution to the development of the world economy including that of Europe.

Without the contribution of the US in different ways, for instance, technological development and the use of cars would not have become so widespread.

Jacques noted that China is now making an extraordinary contribution to global growth, but in different ways from that of the US. He said it is important to remember that in the 19th century only a small part of the world was industrialized or modernized. And only one of those countries, Japan, was not in the West.

Even by the middle of the 20th century, the picture was not very different. But the picture has changed dramatically now, he said. 

“I should say that the Western view was that there was only one way of modernization, or one way to modernity – that was Western modernity,” Jacques said. “There was no other model of modernity.”

He recalled that the characteristics China’s modernization during the reform period were also a combination of borrowing inevitably quite heavily from the experience of other countries that were further down the road to modernization, such as Western countries, Japan, and South Korea. 

But it was a very indigenous adoption, or adaption, of modernization, Jacques said.

He described that phase of China’s development as a hybrid model, which was essentially borrowing heavily from others’ experience and applying it with enormous creativity.

As China has now arrived, in key areas, more or less at the same technological level as the most advanced countries in the world, it is no longer depending on adaption as before. He noted that the question being posed now is what the next stage of modernization will be like.

On this point, Jacques believes that the perspective now for China is to embark on a modernization path which has got much stronger and specific Chinese characteristics.

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“You always have to learn; however advanced, you must learn. … But in the next stage, I think, Chinese modernization (will be) a very potentially creative phase of offering the world a new kind of modernity.”

China's role in the development of Asia is fundamental, and really how Asia will perform in the coming year or five years depends hugely on how well the Chinese economy does, he added, because China is such a huge exporter, importer, and also increasingly provider of capital.

China's role in the development of Asia is fundamental, and really how Asia will perform in the coming year or five years depends hugely on how well the Chinese economy does, he added, because China is such a huge exporter, importer, and also increasingly provider of capital.

contact the writer at vivienxu@chinadailyapac.com