Expert applauds new modernization route

China now contributes more to global growth than any other country, said Martin Jacques, a senior fellow at the United Kingdom's Cambridge University, adding it has taken the baton from the United States and become a powerhouse in 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, last week.

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 common features of modernization while incorporating some elements suited to China's conditions.

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 developments and the use of cars would not have become so widespread, he said.

Jacques said 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.

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.

He recalled that the characteristics of China's modernization after the reform and opening-up were inevitably a combination of borrowing from the experience of other countries that were further down the road to modernization, such as Western countries, Japan, and South Korea.

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

China has now arrived, in key areas, more or less at the same technological level as one of the most advanced countries in the world. He said the question 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 that has got much stronger and carries specific Chinese characteristics.

"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," said Jacques.

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 and importer, and also increasingly a provider of capital.

vivienxu@chinadailyapac.com