since the days of Mao Zedong. Most Chinese citizens enjoy a level of security and are (Covid restrictions excepted) able to move about the country and the world. This was unimaginable 45 years ago. Nonetheless, the Chinese Communist Party does not value individual human rights and people are not free to criticize the state or its ruling Party. The question is whether China can continue to make progress as a market society if freedom including the freedom to own property is under the tight supervision of the state. Will the state smother the spirit that leads to an innovative and creative society? So far, China has continued to grow (even in the midst of the pandemic).
MS: Without any intention of fuelling conspiracy theories, to what extent can it be said that the pandemic that was born in China and has spread around the world has helped Xi Jinping achieve what he announced in the opening speech of the Chinese Communist Party congress in 2017 – “Is time for China to take centre stage’”? Is China trying to dominate the world?
JP: Xi has said and continues to say that by the middle of the century China will complete its national rejuvenation and will be “second to none”. That does not necessarily mean “dominate the world”. China is now responsible for about 18% of global GDP. In 1800 China represented about 25% of global GDP and China has rarely expanded far beyond its initial borders. It is clear that Chinese view themselves as a Great Power and a World Civilization. They see the last 150 years as an exception which must be redressed. But Chinese have never had the urge to rule the world. 70 years before Vasco De Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope a Chinese fleet of more than 20,000 sailed to the coast of East Africa and to Arabia. They had ships vastly larger than the 3 ships that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World, but China has never aspired to rule the world. They have neither the aggressive nor the missionary impulse of the Iberians of the 16th Century.
MS: Can we consider Xi Jinping the greatest political strategist of our time?
JP: No, he has been lucky in the multiple failures of the US.
MS: Does the world have a reason to fear Chinese domination?