If you are white, racism is too easily ignored and forgiven, regarded as of burning concern only to the ethnic minorities, and therefore of relatively marginal significance.
Martin JacquesRead
The era when the United States was the dominant global power is steadily coming to an end, and it must find a way of acknowledging this and framing its ambitions and interests accordingly. Instead of claiming the right to continuing primacy in east Asia, for example, it should seek to share that primacy with China.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The U.S. must recognize its diminishing global dominance and adapt its foreign policy to share power.
In this quote, Martin Jacques discusses the shifting global dynamics, particularly the decline of U.S. dominance and the rise of China. He suggests that rather than insisting on maintaining a unilateral position of power in regions like East Asia, the U.S. should accept a new paradigm of shared influence, which acknowledges the reality of a multipolar world. This perspective encourages collaboration rather than competition, highlighting the need for adaptive ambitions in foreign policy.
Themes
Global PowerDominanceChinaEast AsiaForeign PolicyMultipolar
In practice
Example use cases
In a political speech discussing international relations.
More from Martin Jacques
All quotes →For 200 years, the West has been so dominant in the world that it's not really needed to understand other cultures, other civilizations. Because, at the end of the day, it could, if necessary by force, get its own way.
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We still insist, by and large, in thinking that we can understand China by simply drawing on Western experience, looking at it through Western eyes, using Western concepts. If you want to know why we unerringly seem to get China wrong... this is the reason.
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Just six years into the 21st century, one can say this is not shaping up to be anything like an American century. Rather, the U.S. seems much more likely to be faced with a very different kind of future: how to manage its own imperial decline.
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While the West has enjoyed overwhelming global power, its moral preachings have been legitimised, and in effect enforced, by that power. But as that power begins to ebb, then the morality of its actions will be the subject of growing scrutiny and challenge.
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For 200 years, the dominant powers have also been the colonial powers: the European countries, the U.S. and Japan. They have never been required to pay their dues for what they did to those whom they possessed and treated with contempt.
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