Will this be China's millennium?

Contemplating the age of my oak as I wandered past, drew my mind to the ancient civilisation that is China and its seemingly miraculous ascent over the past quarter of a century at a time that conversely sees the dominance of Western capitalism, politics and culture altering radically and seemingly under existential threat..

Anybody who knows me, knows that I have been a Sinophile for that entire period. My exposure to China commenced shortly after Tiananmen Square, an event which many in the West predicted would see the demise of communism and the Chinese state as we knew it..Whilst it is difficult to comprehend the brutality used in subjugating the protest, it shouldn't be forgotten that only 20 years earlier the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed protesters at Kent University on May 4, 1970, killing 4 and wounding 9.

To the contrary the years since have seen the rise and rise of China.

It is difficult to measure the success China has had since Tiananmen but one measure might be its achievements against the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of international goals, set in 2000 by the largest gathering of world leaders, representing 189 nations, to be implemented over the next 15 years.

The 8 principal goals agreed to can be found here

In late 2015 the UN hailed China's progress in achieving these goals. The highlights of achievement were lifting over 439 million people out of poverty between 1990 and 2011, reducing the under-five mortality rate by at least two-thirds, cutting the maternal mortality rate by three quarters, halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, and actively engaging in South-south cooperation and providing help to over 120 developing countries in their efforts to attain the MDGs.

There is a growing recognition that China's economic rise will change the world. But that change is still seen in narrowly economic terms largely dismissing any significant cultural and political impact.. This dismissal is a misconception.

China, unlike the West, sees itself not so much as a nation state but a 'civilisation' state, existing largely within its own border for the last 2000 years. Language, Confucianism, customs and family are key to their sense of civilisation rather than nationhood.

92% of Chinese believe they are of one race, Han Chinese, which offers them a sense of unity not enjoyed by many other populous nations who all see themselves as multi-racial. In this difference of perception lies China's enduring, sense of superiority and strength.

For the State and its peoples it is the sense that they are a civilisation rather than a state which will ensure that as its economic growth progresses so the dominance of its culture and the nature of its politics as a granter of 'favours, will dominate and increasingly fractured West. As the notion of free trade comes under threat from current US policies so China is setting itself as the defender of globalisation.

It is projected that the Chinese economy will overtake that of the United States in 2027, and by 2050 will be almost twice the size, It is this phenomenal growth, aided by an increasingly fractured and inward-looking, nationalistic focus within many western nations, that will bring down the curtain on the age of the west, which began around 1800 and lead to us living with a culture most unfamiliar..

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