ISLAMABAD: The 21st Century belongs to Asia in general and China in particular, says ex-ambassador Syed Hasan Javed in his book ‘China . ' Rise of China And The Asian Century'.
This is his fourth book on China. Hassan Javed studied Chinese language, literature and history during his decade-long stay in China first as a student and later as career diplomat. Recently, he was Pakistan’s ambassador in Germany.
In his book, he wrote, "the rise of China is likely to be the greatest “game changer” of the 21st century, as compared to any other global phenomenon. It is the most important development of the century.
Nothing would impact the world even remotely closer to this epoch-making historical development. China has converted its relative national power profile of inferiority and vulnerability into one of opportunity and strength for itself and others.
Although the Chinese community living on the Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore as well as the Overseas Chinese combined comprise only one fifth of the world population, they also own a fifth of the world’s GDP and USD 5 trillion foreign exchange reserves. This is definitely a community on the move on an upward trajectory in terms of knowledge, economic prosperity, technological innovation and social capital”.
“China’s rise and the Asian century bring opportunities for all countries in the world, particularly in Euro Asia and specially Pakistan.China’s success in developing its own Economic paradigm cannot long be kept away from the notice, view and attention of a world craving for knowledge of the global best practices, irrespective of their source. The truth will be known eventually, earlier the better. Globalization and digitalization have brought “role reversals” worldwide.
Asia is only beginning to awaken now and is actually nowhere achieving “puberty” yet which is likely in 2050. Asia by virtue of its huge population, is better endowed and could bring out “quality out of quantity” to establish its lead in the next hundred years and become a repository of achievements of the Western societies over the past 500 years, for the benefit of future generations of the global family, irrespective of civilization identity.
What unites societies and nations, are not only shared history, culture or geography. Nations come together not because they have shared interests, shared ideology or shared political culture. These may all be important in their own right. Nations and societies come together because of their belief in “common values”. Pakistan and China are united by our shared belief in the values system, which makes us uniquely together”.