There's a positive review by Stefan Wagstyl of the FT of George Magnus's new book, Uprising: Will Emerging Markets Shake or Shape the World Economy? According to the review, Magnus, a senior economist at UBS,
the question in his title unequivocally: the global influence of the
emerging economies is growing but they are not even close to threatening
a world order dominated by the US. The emerging economies will “shape”
the world economy but none, not even China, will “shake” it.'
It makes quite a change to find an author arguing that there will not be a new world order led by China and maybe India. But there have been some taking a nuanced view. Will Hutton's The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century is a considered analysis of China's strengths and weaknesses – the latter including its rapidly ageing population and surplus males due to the one child policy, not to mention the overwhelming political question of whether market reforms will at some stage require or prompt political liberalisation.
Others worth looking at – all with varying perspectives are The End of Influence by Stephen Cohen and Brad De Long, Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay by Pranab Bardhan, China and America: A Time of Reckoning by Charles Dumas, and, with a wider perspective looking also at the weaknesses of the west, Stephen King's Losing Control.
Most western authors are naturally mainly interested in what China's rise as an economic power means for the western position. However, I was forcefully struck recently by a comment Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs made on BBC Radio 4's Today programme ahead of the G20 conference in Seoul: the Asians, he said, call the current crisis the North Atlantic crisis. Even if China does not become the powerhouse some expect, we in the west have done pretty well at undermining our own strength.
