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I love biking in Shanghai, jostling with the multitudes of Shanghainese cyclists, surrounded by a cacophony of horns and carried along by the limitless, vibrant energy of mobike riders. And as I try to keep up with the frenzied Shanghainese pace - meanwhile yet another ye ye somehow steams past me on his ancient bike - the prophetic words of the great African American writer James Baldwin come to me. ’This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.’ Or, to alter it slightly: ’this world is Western no longer, and it will never be Western again.’ China’s meteoric rise is thrilling, enthralling, inspiring, and has so many diverse meanings; the decline of the Western world order that has governed so dominantly and exploitatively for the past few centuries; the rise of the post-colonial Global South; the resurgence of a civilization that has lain dormant since the Opium Wars. The future is China’s. The joy and gusto of a resurgent Shanghai will never leave me. I am slowly, but unmistakably, falling in love with China.
But before the love affair naturally came the long looks and flirting, so it makes sense to start the story in June prior to my time at Guancha. I have lived in London for the whole of my life and have also recently started studying at Stanford University. Unlike most Westerners, I have always been pro-Chinese. I spent many successive summers in Beijing when I was younger, and had a great time playing ping pong with the Chinese ye yes in Bei Hai Gong Yuan. I have very fond memories of my times in Beijing and was deeply impressed by China. The West’s attitude towards China therefore frequently frustrated me. In particular, the Euro-American fixation on human rights and democracy always struck me as simpleminded, so I have naturally found myself often defending China both in London and at Stanford. Regardless of the happy memories and pro-Chinese arguments, China’s rise remained abstract for me, limited to the realm of graphs and books.
As soon as I touched down in Shanghai this month, however, the early stages of the courtship were instantly over. Shanghai is the single most thrilling, vivacious and exciting place I have ever been. The excitement is ineffable, impossible to capture. It is the excitement I feel biking to work, constantly being cut up by over-eager motor cyclists, dashing across every possible red light to keep up with the astonishing pace of the city. But it is so much more than that. It is the energy of the modern art scene, the inventiveness and the Minsheng Art Gallery and Power Station of Art which surely rival any gallery in the West. But again, it is so much more than that. It is not even Shanghai’s endless technological innovation, though it is important to note that bike-sharing schemes like Mobike and a cashless society remain distant dreams for my native London or even Stanford University at the heart of Silicon Valley.
The root of this excitement is ultimately easy to locate: Shanghai’s permanent vivacity is the very embodiment of China’s relentless, dazzling rise. Take the high speed rail from Shanghai station and this fact becomes indisputable. The legions of people gathered at Shanghai railway station frantically running to reach their trains and the mind-bending pace of the high speed rail reveal a country gathering breathless momentum. And if that is not enough already, the sheer and constant density of tower blocks along the route to Nanjing serve as a reminder of China’s newfound economic power. Indeed, more skyscrapers were built in Shenzhen last year than in the entirety of America. And of course, as a hopeless Westerner, I have to mention the Bund. It is impossible to look out across the river at the astonishing array of skyscrapers and not feel moved, inspired by China’s resurgence.
And whatever Western naysayers cry, China’s non-democratic governance or human rights deficiencies are not going to stop its monumental rise. You don’t have to be a political scientist to see this. Just listen to local Shanghainese and you will see a respect for and faith in the Chinese government that would be unimaginable in Britain or America. Indeed, what are Brexit and Trump but crises of legitimacy? And if you think I am gazing at the legitimacy of the Chinese government through rose-tinted glasses, just look at the facts. In a recent 2014 poll of Chinese attitudes published by the Pew Research Center, 87% of respondents noted satisfaction with the direction of the country. The current American Congressional approval rate is 21%. This legitimacy runs so much deeper than anyone in the West could ever contemplate. Talking to locals, conversations about Chinese government always somehow end with references to China’s ancient civilizational history. Once again, you don’t need to be a world class historian to see that China’s vast history is the root of its unity and stability.
Shanghai’s energy is therefore largely down to China’s unstoppable rise. But, for me, there is more to it than that. More fundamentally, Shanghai is imbued with the excitement of shifting historical paradigms, for China’s ascent signals the end of a 500 year long epoch: Western dominance.
The rise and hegemony of the West has been the defining historical drama of the past half-millennium, and can be dated to the 16th century with the European Age of Discovery and the colonization of the New World. These early forays into the Americas were the beginnings of the vast empires that would define the West’s epoch. The industrial revolution in England ensured the Europe’s insuperable hegemony which reached its height in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the British Empire ruling over 20% of the world’s people in 1945. Britannia truly ’ruled the waves.’ Meanwhile, China was suffering its ignominious ’century of humiliation’, defeated in the Opium Wars and partially colonized. In the final act of this prolonged drama, Europeans powers were supplanted by America as the world’s superpower following the Second World War.
The Age of the West, however, is at an end. For the first time since the 16th century, the world’s geopolitical and economic center of gravity is shifting eastwards. The rise of China challenges the very foundations of a world order built over the course of five centuries. This is the ineffable, inexpressible resurgence that I feel looking out over the river at the Bund, a resurgence that is imbued with centuries of history, with the decline of empires and the emancipation of millions. I can almost sense the gears of history shifting as I look out to the Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai Tower. And as someone with Malaysian-Indian heritage, I feel so deeply proud of China and cannot help but cry enough is enough! The West has had its turn and it is high time that the formerly colonized Global South finally had its chance!
And yet there are still greater depths in the energy I see in Shanghai that I cannot even begin to contemplate, my historical horizons too narrow as an Englishman or as a Malaysian. When I speak to locals about China’s rise, they look so far beyond the decline of the West. 200 years of Western dominance means so little within the broad span of Chinese history. Instead, I hear a grand narrative of Chinese civilization, that the current ascent is merely a recovery from a couple of centuries of decay and a return to the heights of China’s greatness. This is beyond my wildest historical imagination. If only my friends in London and at Stanford were there to hear this!
This country, this civilization is palpably growing in confidence after its disastrous past two centuries. Indeed, you don’t even have to look to China’s foreign policy in the South China Sea and across the Indian border to see its growing self-belief. The breathless streets, endless skyscrapers, formidable nightlife, vibrant art galleries that I have described attest to a country remembering its former confidence and glory.
This self-confidence, however, is still limited. Indeed, the Chinese propensity to still look up to white people and the West deeply saddens me. Forbes, for instance, recently reported ’Etiquette Classes For China’s Wealthy Women Are The Newest Status Symbol.’ Nowhere is this nauseating love for all things Western more evident than Shanghai. The billboards featuring old white men to denote class, and the ubiquity of posh Western brands such as Kenzo are indicative of China’s incomplete rise. China must stop looking to the West as a beacon of civilization and class. And further, however hard they try, Chinese people will never emulate the ideal English ’gentleman’ that so many seemingly aspire to. In fact, I find the Chinese understanding of the ’gentleman’ a bit offensive. The nouveau riche seem to think that the English ’gentleman’ is all about superficial classy manners, and expensive tastes in clothes and food. This would make Jane Austen turn in her grave. The Austenian English gentleman is someone wealthy but dedicated to society, who is never showy, and treats women with the greatest respect.
But enough with this British nonsense. More than anything, I find the Chinese love for the ’civilized West’ tasteless given the richness of China’s own socio-cultural inheritance. How can a couple of hundred years of English grandeur possibly compare to China’s two thousand years of history, its emperors and dynasties! And China will never truly be the world’s dominant power until it has deep confidence its own ancient culture; until I walk down Jiangsu road and see people of all stripes wearing Chinese clothes rather than Kenzo or Luis Vuitton; until its clubs and bars play the melodies of its own, Chinese music rather than the monotonous drone of Drake; until its tallest skyscrapers pay homage to China’s own beautiful designs rather than the metallic, soulless future imagined by New York’s earliest architects. Nonetheless, this is but a footnote on China’s dramatic rise.
I doubt that leaving Shanghai in a few days’ time will be the end of my love affair with China. In fact, I think this is but the start of a long, long relationship. It has been an utter pleasure to work at Guancha, perhaps the only news website with a rhetoric fit for a rising China. Indeed, Guancha is very much like China: rising and increasingly self-confident. And I think it will be strange to return to the West after my time in Shanghai. The West increasingly looks and feels like a backwater, selling itself false assurances of its continued dominances, suffering delusions of grandeur and ignoring the inevitability of the oncoming gravitational shift Eastwards. By contrast, the power, energy and dynamism of Shanghai will never leave me.
The twenty-first century will be China’s. The world is Western no longer, and it will never be Western again.
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