Martin Jacques

Hello everyone, long time no speak!   My good friend and influential Chinese philosopher, Dr Manhua Li, educated in China, France and Germany, is running a 5-day online workshop at the UCL Summer School   I’ll be there on Day 1. Link Below! ⬇️

Look forward to speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe on August 6th

Why Chinese and Western modernisation are different

@LabourRichard has put forward a motion marking McGahey's leadership the struggles of coal miners for safety, conditions, wages and jobs, his role in advancing the Scottish labour movement and contribution to delivering a Scottish Parliament.

@ewangibbs Great man - and full of warmth as well as principle

@ewangibbs Had he been General Secretary there would have been no disastrous strike.

@LabourRichard Full details on the motion are available on the Parliament website. It has enjoyed cross-party support from Labour, SNP, Green and Lib Dem MSPs and also calls for a tribute to McGahey to be erected at Holyrood. #wm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">parliament.scot/chamber-and-co…

Michael 'Mick' McGahey was a prominent Communist, a leader of the Scottish and British miners in pivotal moments between the 1960s and 1980s and a preeminent campaigner for a Scottish Parliament. Today, the 25th anniversary of his passing will be commemorated at Holyrood.

@bryansgunn Brilliant!

Stick to the plan, Erik

@MariamBarghouti Ha, you think we are afraid of an Apartheid state? Never! Aluta continua

Left: Conservative Party Home Secretary Suella Braverman, "These are hate marches" Right: Former Co-Chair of the Conservative Party Baroness Warsi, "Israel is not Netanyahu, the Palestinian people are not Hamas, and the protestors on the streets of London are neither protesting for Hamas, nor are they hate marches" "Protests planned for weeks. They were in discussions with the Met police for weeks. The route was well away from the Cenotaph for weeks. And yet last week the Home Secteray decided to embolden and make this a political issue knowing full well what the route of the march was going to be" "That's the way she operates, she fights culture wars. She doesn't fix things, she breaks things" "I think Suella Braverman is dangerous and divisive. If you look at her rhetoric, it's always about pitching A against B" "Some of my Conservative colleagues in government project as patriots but they are indeed arsonists. They’ve set this country alight. They pit community against community. They create these fires. That is not the job of a government. The job of a government is to keep us all safe. You do that by creating a sense of ease, not by fighting culture wars"

Chinese diplomacy seems to have gotten a lot more skilled since the 2020-2022 “wolf warrior” phase. In the current Israel-Hamas/Palestine conflict, China has been playing its cards quite deftly: building goodwill with Arab countries and encouraging notions of solidarity across the Global South, while not getting entangled in any substantive way that could open it to more serious backlash in the West (especially in Europe). Hard to see how she could have improved her geopolitical standing any more effectively. Also true, of course, that facially (if not substantively) unconditional American/Western support for Israel paired within internal divisions over this issue in Western countries have given her an obvious opening, and that she’s simply picking low hanging fruit here. scmp.com/economy/global…

I remember lots of things, but I do not think that the international situation was ever so bad, with several irresolvable conflicts going on, and total unwillingness to negotiate. We have to go back to the 1930s---and even then people negotiated.

In 1937, Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians, the Native Americans, and the Aboriginal Australians:

@FrancesSwaine Is it online?

Final panel event for the VoW Festival 2023 Monday 11th September 6.00 to 8.00 pm Black Cultural Archives Deconstructing how policing helps to marginalise the Black community With an amazing panel : Dr Leroy Logan, Abimbola Johnson, Lee Jasper, Tinu Adishile. #VoWFest2023

The transformation of BRICS over the last year has taken the world by surprise. Five members has become eleven, with many more in waiting. The Global South has acquired a powerful new voice on the global stage. In conversation with Martin Jacques youtu.be/xmFz-vpXOXY?si…

Very sad to hear this. A wonderful and unique institution. Can’t anything be done to save it even at this late hour? One of my favourite places in London. A piece of India in the heart of London.

#Opinion: Born in 2009, in the immediate aftermath of Western financial crisis, BRICS signaled the growing importance of the developing world. From the outset, it represented and articulated a desire for an alternative to the Western-dominated, post-1945 global order, writes @martjacques. globaltimes.cn/page/202308/12…

Despite fond liberal imaginings, WWII was not won by New Deal or FDR's bomber program. At home USA barely broke sweat. Work of crushing Nazis done by Stalinist SU. If we are "declaring war on climate change", will it be China carrying fight this time? foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/15/cli…