When China Rules the World (Oh, that's so 1776!)

Anyone who is concerned about the Rise of China apoplexy that is sweeping the USA and, to a lesser extent, Europe should look at Martin Jacques's TED Talk.  Jacques is a writer, journalist and public intellectual. The talk is a very concise summary of the main ideas of his 2009 book When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World.

Jacques's economic analysis is nothing special.  A new book on China's economic rise is published every week.  However, he has original and interesting things to say about  China as a 'civilization-state" rather than a "nation-state", about Chinese attitudes toward race and about the relationship of the state to society.  Of course, all of these themes are more fully treated in the book than in the 24 minute TED video.  One of the more interesting points omitted from the video is that modern China's relations with it's east Asian neighbors may be evolving into a tributary nation system which reached its previous height in the 17th and 18th centuries.

China was arguably the dominant world power in those days.  The British empire did not reach its peak until the 19th century and the Spanish was already in decline. The Ottoman empire centered on Constantinople had begun to come apart at the seams.

Here's an interesting chart of the world's largest cities over time. (Source: http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm)  I have highlighted the Chinese ones.

City	Year Became #1	Population Information
Memphis, Egypt	3100 BCE	Well over 30,000
Akkad, Babylonia (Iraq)	2240
Lagash, Babylonia (Iraq)	2075
Ur, Babylonia (Iraq)	2030	65,000
Thebes, Egypt	1980
Babylon, Babylonia (Iraq)	1770
Avaris, Egypt	1670
Memphis, Egypt	1557
Thebes, Egypt	1400
Nineveh, Assyria (Iraq)	668
Babylon, Babylonia (Iraq)	612	First above 200,000
Alexandria	320
Pataliputra (Patna), India	300
Changan (Xi'an), China	195	400,000
Rome	25	450,000 (100 CE)
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey	340 CE	400,000 (500)
Ctesiphon, Iraq	570
Changan (Xi'an), China	637	400,000 (622); 600,000 (800)
Baghdad, Iraq	775	First over 1 million; 700,000 (800)
Cordova, Spain	935
Kaifeng, China	1013	400,000 (1000); 442,000 (1100)
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey	1127
Merv (Mary), Turkmenistan	1145	200,000 (1150)
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey	1153
Fez (Fes), Morocco	1170
Hangzhou, China	1180	255,000 (1200); 320,000 (1250)
Cairo, Egypt	1315
Hangzhou, China	1348	432,000 (1350)
Nanking, China	1358	487,000 (1400)
Beijing, China	1425	600,000 (1450); 672,000 (1500)
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey	1650	700,000 (1650 & 1700)
Beijing, China	1710	900,000 (1750); 1.1 million (1800)
London, United Kingdom	1825	First over 5 million; 1.35 million (1825); 2.32 million (1850); 4.241 million (1875); 6.480 million (1900)
New York	1925	First over 10 million; 7.774 million (1925), 12.463 million (1950)
Tokyo	1965	First over 20 million; 23 million (1975)