Jonathan Fenby will speak on China’s Heritage – Two Millennia of Exceptionalism when he joins the Lewes Speakers Festival on Saturday, May 10 from 11.20-12.30.
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00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. A real pleasure
00:07this afternoon to speak to Jonathan Fenby, who's among the speakers at the forthcoming
00:12Lewis Speakers Festival this May. Now, Jonathan, you'll be speaking on China's heritage, and
00:19your title is Two Millennia of Exceptionalism. And clearly that word exceptionalism says so
00:26much, doesn't it? That's crucial. And I think it's crucial to the story. It's crucial to
00:32China's view of itself, which is that it is an exceptional nation. And this is not something
00:38new. This is not something from Xi Jinping, the present ruler of China, but dates back
00:45thousands of years to the imperial system in China, when succeeding dynasties, they might
00:53rise and fall. But they all believe that China was the Middle Kingdom, in a strange position
01:00between heaven and earth, and definitely superior to all other nations.
01:05Absolutely. And that inculcated sense of superiority is not necessarily a good thing for a country,
01:11as you were saying, as the 19th century showed.
01:13Yes, it can lead to extreme nationalism at points. And it can also lead to a kind of complacency,
01:22a self-satisfaction, which you saw in the 19th century under the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty,
01:30who, when a British mission went to China around 1800, the emperor replied that he had no need
01:40for any of the mechanical goods, which he brought with it from the Industrial Revolution in the West,
01:47because, quote, we possess everything.
01:50Goodness. And then there was a decline, but the plates are shifting, and we are clearly,
01:56absolutely, at a pivotal moment now, aren't we?
01:59Absolutely.
01:59Do we have anything to fear from China?
02:02Is the, I don't know, is the priorities change?
02:07Yes. I mean, China looms so large, and if I can say so, people haven't, because I've been writing
02:14about this for a long time, but people took a long time to wake up to the political and strategic
02:21global emphasis that China could bring to bear. They saw China for a long time as a source
02:30of cheap goods, a way of keeping down inflation, a way of cheap underwear, socks, children's toys,
02:41Christmas decorations, etc., etc. But now it's a matter of high technology, of electric vehicles,
02:49and of other things where China has jumped ahead.
02:53And we need to change our perspective, don't we? Let's catch up with the reality.
02:57We do. Whether we want to go back to manufacturing the kind of things that China manufactures,
03:06and of course China has had the advantage of a huge cheap labour force,
03:12whether we want to do that is a completely different question.
03:17Well, it sounds absolutely fascinating, your talk. You're going to have a huge amount to pack into one session
03:22at the Lewis Speakers Festival. Jonathan, lovely to speak to you. Thank you.