他于2009年11月29日在洛杉矶时报撰文如何理解中国。以下是摘录：
西方对中国的不了解导致重复地削弱了西方对中国行为预测的能力。一次又一次的，我们对中国的预测与想法都被证明是错误的：中国共产党会会在1989年垮台，中国会分裂，它的经济成长不会持久，它的经济数字大大地被夸大，中国对他从英国收回香港时所提出的‘一国两制’没有诚意，当然还有它会稳健地西方化。我们对中国估计错误有很长的纪录。
我们不能准确地预测中国的未来是因为我们不了解它的过去。虽然中国在上个世纪形容自己是个国家，它其实基本上是个文明个体。它是世界上最长久的现存政治个体，可以追溯到公元前221年时秦国的胜利。不同于西方的国家，中国的认同感来自它作为文明个体的长久历史。
当然，世上有很多文明流派，西方文明就是其中之一，但是只有中国是个文明个体。它以特别长久的历史为界定，再加上它的辽阔地理与人口的规模与多元化。这个涵义深远：以一统为优先，以多元为生存条件。（这就是为什么中国提供香港‘一国两制’，在一个国家中这是奇异的方式。）
与西方国家相比，中国与其社会的关系是不一样的。虽然其政府连人民的一票也没有得到，但是它却获得更大的自然的权威、合法性与尊重。理由是，中国人把政府看成是他们文明的监护人、监督人与具体象征。政府的合法性深深依附于中国历史。这与西方人如何看待他们的历史是完全不同的。
如果我们要了解中国，我们就要超越西方所习惯的现实、经验与所有概念的尺度来理解中国的历史。两百年来，西方由欧洲开始到美国垄断世界，并不需要了解‘他人’。有必要时他们惯常以欺压来使对方屈服。
中国作为世界势力的出现标志着哪个时代的结束。我们日渐必须以对等的条件来与‘他人’（以中国为代表）周旋。
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Martin Jacques, a columnist for The Guardian of London, argues in his book ‘When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order’ that ‘we stand on the eve of a different kind of world’. He challenges the common assumptions in the West that China will become increasingly like them. He is probably the first in the West to elaborate the China’s Minatory Theory from cultural angle.
He wrote in the Los Angeles Times on 29 Nov 2009 on how to understand China and I quote:
The West's failure to understand the Chinese has repeatedly undermined its ability to anticipate their behaviour. Again and again, our predictions and beliefs about China have proved wrong: that the Chinese Communist Party would fall after 1989, that the country would divide, that its economic growth could not be sustained, that its growth figures were greatly exaggerated, that China was not sincere about its offer of ‘one country two systems’ at the time of the hand-over of Hong Kong from Britain -- and, of course, that it would steadily Westernize. We have a long track record of getting China wrong. The fundamental reason for our inability to accurately predict China's future is our failure to understand its past. Although China has described itself as a nation-state for the last century, it is in essence a civilization-state. The longest continually existing polity in the world, it dates to 221 BC and the victory of the Qin. Unlike Western nation-states, China's sense of identity comes from its long history as a civilization-state.
Of course, there are many civilizations -- Western civilization is one example -- but China is the only civilization-state. It is defined by its extraordinarily long history and also its huge geographic and demographic scale and diversity. The implications are profound: Unity is its first priority, plurality the condition of its existence (which is why China could offer Hong Kong "one country two systems," a formula alien to a nation-state).
The Chinese state enjoys a very different kind of relationship with society compared with the Western state. It enjoys much greater natural authority, legitimacy and respect, even though not a single vote is cast for the government. The reason is that the state is seen by the Chinese as the guardian, custodian and embodiment of their civilization. The duty of the state is to protect its unity. The legitimacy of the state therefore lies deep in Chinese history. This is utterly different from how the state is seen in Western societies.
If we are to understand China, we must move beyond the compass of Western reality and experience and the body of concepts that has grown up to explain that history. We find this extremely difficult. For 200 years the West, first in the shape of Europe and then the United States, has dominated the world and has not been required to understand others or The Other. If need be it could always bully the latter into submission.
The emergence of China as a global power marks the end of that era. We now have to deal with The Other -- in the form of China -- on increasingly equal terms.
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