Martin Jacques on current international order and China's contribution to global security

Interview Series: Community with a Shared Future for Mankind

EP13: Martin Jacques on current international order and China's contribution to global security

Q1: China has put forward Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative. How will these initiatives affect the world?

Martin Jacques: What we’ve seen is China coming forward with ways in which some of the most difficult problems in the world could be resolved, the way to think about it, the lines of action that might be followed. And these three issues are absolutely essential.

Development is the problem of the great majority in the world who live in the developing countries. So a commitment to development and how to achieve it is fundamental. The West would never do something like this. Never would never offer something like this.

Security become more of a much bigger problem. We've moved into an area where peace can no longer be taken for granted.

And the Civilization Initiative is very Chinese, and extremely alien to the West, because the West does not think in terms of civilization at all in any meaningful way. The problem is that under the Western age that we've lived through hitherto, the West does not recognize difference, the ancestry of difference. And for developing countries, it's become more and more important to them to seek to find the historical connections with their pasts. So this is a very important issue.

Q2: Recently, Saudi Arabia and Iran have reached an agreement to restore diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after the two sides held negotiations in Beijing. What does this show in case of China’s role in the international society?

Martin Jacques: I think what it shows us is that China is now a really significant global power, because there is a very tricky situation in the Middle East for a very long time. The Middle East was one of the most important areas of American influence, and yet it couldn't sponsor a settlement like this.

There is China using its good offices to bring this treat, this diplomatic recognition, and what might flow from this in terms of resolving lots of disputes in the region. This could be the single most important act to bring one of the causes of conflicts and a rest in the Middle East thred, and China’s playing the leading role.

Q3: Terminating the Russia-Ukraine conflict and making peace have become the common expectations of the international community. Recently, the Chinese government has released a paper stating China's position on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, demonstrating China's role as a responsible major country to defend world peace. How do you comment on it?

Martin Jacques: We don't know how long it's going to go on for. There's no sign of ending. It will only come to an end in a ceasefire when both parties feel that it would be better to conclude. There's no sign of that at the moment. So, we're in a stalemate situation, but the stalemate won't last forever. So under what circumstances could this change? Well, at some point they will decide. Maybe it would be better to find out whether we can have some kind of agreement to bring it to an end. The question is, which countries are in a position to enable it? We can hypothesize, which is what I'm going to do, but we don't really know the answer to that question. China is in a position, potentially, to play that role. Obviously, it's got a fairly open relationship with Russia. On the other hand, Ukraine had some important economic agreements with China. So I think it's very important for Ukraine to keep its lines of communication with China open.