Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

World Service,10 mins

SeriesMaking Sense Of China

What Will China Be Like As A Superpower?

The Documentary

Available for over a year

In this second talk, he examines the tributary system, the historical China-centric network of international relations which involved other parts of East Asia accepting the principle of Chinese superiority in return for protection and access to the Chinese market, an arrangement distinct to European forms of colonialism. He asks whether a system of this kind is now re-emerging. Martin Jacques is the author of When China Rules the World. (Image: Members of a Chinese military honour guard. Credit: ANDY WONG/AFP/Getty Images)

Programme Website
More episodes