ADAPTING TO THE WORLD ORDER

OKB: We are now in a situation where the eastern edge of the Europe-Asia landmass meets the western edge. It would be interesting at this point to discuss China again. Perhaps we can start with an article you wrote a while ago on China trying hard to adjust to a world order it had no part in creating.

That is in fact the process that China has been going through for a long time, starting with the Opium War, followed by the fall of the imperial system, then the rise of the Kuomintang, and then the triumph of Mao. It was Deng Xiaoping's reforms after 1978 that finally brought remarkable economic growth to the country. All this took a hundred and seventy years. But now, in its new position of power and influence, functioning well at the global level in all areas becomes extremely important for China. There is also a fall in confidence in the West, which in a way opens up space for the Chinese to actually tweak the world order wherever they can. This begs the question: to what extent is Confucianism — or Confucian thinking — still at play here? After all, in the bigger scheme of things, communism will probably just be seen as an anomaly.

You told me the other day that you see yourself as a Confucian, and that you were raised that way. I'm one of those who believe that the contribution that Confucian thinking can bring to modern life is actually quite enormous. But because of colonialism and the rise of Western science and technology, whatever knowledge that was not Western was pushed aside as being essentially misguided. I am hoping to hear your views on that.

Also, China is now ranked the second-largest economy, and aiming to be first. But we know for a fact that the American system is much more stable, and even if it should someday rank only second in terms of certain statistical figures, it's got strong institutions and it's got impressive unity in ideology. On the Chinese side, things are rather chaotic and fragile.