Another China Book I Don’t Need to Read

2010-01-06

The title of Martin Jacques’s new book, “When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order” has a willfully alarmist ring to it, signaling the rise of China as the new global superpower and the coming fall of America and the rest of the West. (from Michiko Kakutani's book review in the New York Times)

RANT ALERT: I really hate jumping to conclusions before informing myself on an issue, and pronouncing judgment on a book I've never read is probably irresponsible and unfair. I have the utmost respect for the book-writing process and its demands on authors, so I don't like to criticize so directly (well, maybe with the exception of anything written by Gordon Chang).

But in this case, I'll make an exception. The book's title alone is almost enough for me to discount it in its entirety.

Haven't we had enough of the "China is taking over the world" stories? Ignorant bastard that I am, I figured that we would have all learned the lessons of the 1980s when the same stupid books were written about Japan (and movies – remember Rising Sun?) — and then the '90s happened.

But alas, we humans are not so good at learning from our goofs and are therefore doomed to repeat them, particularly the most ridiculous ones.
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