Journey to the East

Being now in China, most people will agree that I am in the East. But defining China as the Far East can be both philosophical and geo-political incorrect. In a historic context it may even be wrong.

In Europe and America we like to define ourselves as the center of the universe. Ergo Asia is to the East of us. China, being at the far Eastern shore of the Asian continent, is thus placed in the Far East.
But in a philosophical context it is not altogether logical where East is. Now that I have moved myself to China, I am of course still at the center of my world. Europe is of course still to my west. But if I now apply the same way of looking at directions, India is also to my west. So is Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and other countries that we normally call the Middle East. So in a way, the world is completely turned around.

West becomes East
By looking at the world this way, Norway is now the Far West, because it is on the far western coast of the European continent. If I see the world in terms of the shortest distance, America is now to my East. That would make the state of New York a natural Far East.
My point is of course highly theoretical. But every once in a while it gets to me that our way of looking at the world is slightly awkward, and reflects the political strength in the world of the 19th and 20th century.
Right now I am reading a Chinese book called The journey to the West. This is about a Taoist monk and a monkey travelling to India. This book is based on Chinese folklore and philosophy, and was first time recorded in writing in the 16th century.
At that time China was an undisputable superpower, and the center of much important trade, both all over Asia, but also to much more distant corners of the world. Norway – at that time was a poor, underdeveloped province in the far northwestern corner of Europe. USA was not even formed as a country.

The Middle Kindom
China, on the other hand, calls itself Zhong Guo, which literally translates into The Kingdom in the Middle. At that time China was in many ways the center of the world. This is where some of the first advanced civilization was formed. China was an intellectual, cultural and religious center of the world. When Norway was christened in a bloody and brutal manner, for example, China already had some thousand years of recorded history and a society based on a Taoist and Buddhist religious philosophy.
For thousands of years now, China has regarded itself as the center of the world. First when China was colonized by the British, Portugese French and Germans the Chinese were forced to submit to a different world view than what they were used to.

A world clock at Shanghai Pudong International Airport shows China's world view, with China in the middle, America to the far East, and Europe and Africa to the West.

Developing or re-developing
Today we see that the world is shifting back. An ever larger proportion of world trade is yet again going back and forth between China and the rest of the world. Chinas political strength is growing day by day, and from where I am now, I see many signs of the Chinese government growing bolder and bolder on the international stage.
We just experienced China making the first demand to shift political world power away from the American continent, when they demanded the creation of a new world trade currency that is not linked to the dollar. China also sent an important political message when they demanded the voting rules of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) being changed in favor of developing countries.
As most people are aware of, IMF, the World Bank, UN and similar international forums are based on the geo-political situation directly after World War Two. But much has happened since then, and Russia, Brazil, Iran and China are among the states that have grown in strength and importance over the last 25-30 years.

Kept under heel
China, for example, only has around four percent of the votes in the IMF, while the country today is the world’s third largest economy and hold more than 20 percent of the world’s population. USA, on the other hand has over 17 percent of voting rights in the IMF, while they only account for only around seven percent of the world’s population. (By this they are the only country which holds a de facto veto right in the IMF)
After the latest so called G20 meeting (great 20 nations), the president of USA regarded it as a victory that so many countries contributed to raising funds to the IMF. Norwegian newspapers proudly announced that China covered a large portion of the new funds invested into the IMF.
But alas, the Norwegian journalists didn’t do their homework properly (maybe because they were mainly referring t press agencies like Reuters and AP).
The Chinese prime minister said at the G20 summit that China was more than prepared to pay a larger portion of the capital raised for the IMF, if voting rights in the IMF were changed in favor of the Chinese. So far we haven’t seen any change of the voting rights, and therefore the Chinese paid only around 40 billion dollars, accounting for around 4 percent of the total fund put into the IMF.

Back at the center
I think, what the European and American media failed to see is that China by this sent a very clear political message to the rest of the world, saying;
We are strong, we know we are strong, and we demand our right to be put back to the center of political decisions.
And I honestly don't think the Chinese will stop to demand that political power shifts in their direction any time soon. Either way I think we all will do wise to prepare to observe how the political center of the world will shift in the next two or three decades.
If that means that the philosophical center changes along with it is hard to predict. But I think we can all assume that China is underway to shaking off their inferior position that barbarian imperialists from the Far West forced upon them.

Read more about how global politics was covered and analysed in Chinese media here, or in the news clip below.

News clip from China Daily, telling more about what the G20 summit looked like from the other side of the world. Not much sign of any presiden Obama flirting with journalist groupies here, as Norwegian newspapers made a huge point of.