From an article by Martin Jacques - a new reality the western world finds hard to admit. It's not about liking everything about China's rise, but at least understanding the nature of this global revolution:
2008 ushered in a new era, the beginning of a Chinese world economic order. Until recently the US largely shaped globalisation but now China is increasingly assuming that role. Its most dramatic expression is trade. China will shortly become the world's largest trading nation. It imports huge amounts of natural resources and exports a massive volume of manufactured goods: in 2011, it overtook the US to become the world's largest producer of manufactured goods, a position America had previously held for 110 years. In 1990, there was hardly a country in the world for which China was its chief trading partner. By 2000, there were a few, but nearly all were in east Asia. By 2010 the list stretched around the world, including Japan, South Africa, Australia, Chile, Brazil, India, Pakistan, the US and Egypt. Imagine how long the list will be in 2020.
China is rapidly emerging as a great financial power. In 2009 and 2010 the China Development Bank and the China Exim Bank – which I would guess the great majority of Observer readers have never even heard of – lent more to the developing world than the World Bank. Just as the Rothschilds funded much of Europe's industrialisation in the 19th century, so these two banks are now doing the same on a far larger canvas, namely the entire developing world, comprising 85% of the world's population. Meanwhile, in late 2008, China began making the renminbi, hitherto a currency that circulated only in China, available for the settlement of trade. The HSBC has predicted that by 2013-15 half of China's trade with the developing world (which constitutes more than half of China's total trade) will be paid for in renminbi. It is the first stage in the process by which the renminbi will replace the dollar as the world's dominant currency.
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