At the heart of globalisation is a new kind of intolerance in the West towards other cultures, traditions and values, less brutal than in the era of colonialism, but more comprehensive and totalitarian.

After the Meiji restoration in 1868, Japan adopted an expansionist and colonial attitude towards its neighbours. It sought to identify itself with the West and looked down upon the Asian continent as backward and inferior. For most of the next 70 years, Japan was at war, mainly with its neighbours.

An increasingly multipolar world requires an entirely different kind of U.S. foreign policy: far from being unilateralist, it necessitates a complex form of power-sharing on both a global and regional basis.

Ever since the Meiji restoration in 1868, Japan has turned its back on Asia in general and China in particular: its pattern of aggression from 1895 onwards and the colonies that resulted were among the consequences.

When I am back in old Blighty, I am surrounded by the old and familiar concerns: New Labour, Europe, the Middle East and the rest. If you live in Britain, you will know what I mean - except you won't, because you will take it for granted that this is what the world is all about.

Unlike the Soviet Communist party, the Chinese Communist party chose to introduce capitalism.

Always beware your moment of triumphalism: such emotions are a poor steer on the future.

The question is not whether Tibet should be independent but the extent of the autonomy that it is allowed. Tibet has been firmly ensconced as part of the Chinese empire since the Qing dynasty's military intervention in Tibet in the early 18th century.

The fact that hardly anyone is ever prepared to admit to racist behaviour is perhaps a sort of strength: it speaks to the fact that racism is socially inadmissible.

The cost to Tata of purchasing Land Rover and Jaguar may have been small, but its wider symbolic significance is enormous.

Our leaders increasingly see fit to lecture the ethnic minorities on the need to integrate, including of course the need to speak English. What about the need, though, for Britain to integrate with the rest of the world?

9/11 was a hugely overblown event that only assumed its overarching importance a) because it was done to the United States and b) because of the way the U.S. reacted.

In my experience (I am the lone father of an eight-year-old boy who lost his mother when he was one year old), parenting is the most difficult of all jobs: forget your chief executives, editors, prime ministers and the like - parenting is far more challenging.

For 200 years, the dominant powers have also been the colonial powers: the European countries, the U.S. and Japan. They have never been required to pay their dues for what they did to those whom they possessed and treated with contempt.

My guess is that good and bad parenting is spread fairly evenly across different social groups. But can you imagine Tony Blair lecturing the middle class on how to bring up their children? He is far more comfortable as a latter-day exponent of the Poor Law mentality.

Koizumi was not rooted in Japan's rightwing nationalist tradition: he was a pragmatist and a populist. Abe, in contrast, is a rightwing nationalist. Unlike Koizumi, for example, he has questioned the validity of the postwar Tokyo trials of Japan's wartime leaders, which found many of them guilty of war crimes.

If the truth be told, we are a society that is dripping in racism. This is not in the least surprising. For the best part of two centuries, we British ruled the waves, controlled two-fifths of the planet, and believed it was our responsibility to bring civilisation to those who allegedly lacked it.

If one wanted to find a modern symbol of personal freedom, the motor car is right there near the top of the list. But a car has come to mean much more than that. It has become a powerful statement about who you are and how much you earn.

The more expensive and/or exclusive a sport, the whiter it tends to be: the fact almost has the force of a law. That is the main reason why the Rugby World Cup, the Pacific islands excepted, was so desperately white, the Springboks included.

The two ethnic groups that remain fundamentally different from the Han Chinese - in terms of history, culture, language, religion and physical appearance - are the Uighurs and Tibetans. In these two groups, the Han Chinese come face to face with difference.

Just six years into the 21st century, one can say this is not shaping up to be anything like an American century. Rather, the U.S. seems much more likely to be faced with a very different kind of future: how to manage its own imperial decline.

Israel is the agent and surrogate of the United States and as such is treated entirely differently from every other country in the region. How can anyone expect Iran to accept that it is right for Israel to have nuclear weapons while itself being disallowed?

Western countries are thoroughly accustomed to being the centre of global attention, which they have come to regard as their natural birthright. Not so China. It was thwarted in its attempt to hold the 2000 Olympics, which, as a result of American-led pressure, was awarded to Sydney.

There may be little practical difference between a Ford Mondeo and a BMW three series, but in terms of perceptions of who you are and what you are, then they are worlds apart.

Our ascendancy of the past two centuries - first Europe and then the U.S. - has bred a western-centric mentality: the West is the fount of all wisdom. We think of ourselves as open-minded, but our sense of superiority has closed our minds. We never entertained the idea that China could surpass the U.S.

More than 90% of Chinese believe themselves to be Han. Of course, such a vast population is derived from countless different races, but because China has enjoyed such a long and continuous history as a polity, there has been thousands of years of mixing, melding and assimilation.

The 21st century will be quite unlike the preceding two centuries, in which power was located in Europe and the U.S., and the rest of the world consisted of mere supplicants and bit players.

Sport is increasingly played according to the tune, and rules, of those with the biggest bucks, whether their practices be legal or illegal.

The election of the nationalist Chen Shui-bian as president in 2000 and his re-election in 2004 was a nadir in the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland.

The fact that the Bush administration, and those in Europe who have followed its 9/11-inspired agenda, somehow believe that the future of the world is being played out in the Middle East and Central Asia rather than East Asia has only served to accelerate China's rise and the U.S.'s decline.

The World Cup is not just a great global sporting event, it is also inscribed with much deeper cultural and political importance.

Without doubt, Malaysia is the great economic star of the Muslim world.

One of the unique features of China is that, notwithstanding the fact that it has a population of 1.3 billion, around 92% regard themselves as Han Chinese. This is quite different from the world's other most populous countries, such as India, the U.S. and Indonesia, which are ethnically diverse.

Already 2008 has proved a tumultuous year in terms of global perceptions of China, and there are still 59 days to go until the Beijing Olympics. The tragedy of the Sichuan earthquake followed hard on the heels of the riots in Tibet and the demonstrations surrounding the Olympic torch relay.

The world is fortunate - for the time being, at least - that it has an American president in Obama who is prepared to take a conciliatory and concessive attitude towards America's decline and that it has a Chinese leadership which has been extremely cautious about expressing an opinion, let alone flexing its muscles.

In Formula One, the car can make a difference in a way that a driver cannot. Whereas Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna spent their early seasons in second-rate machinery, Hamilton walked into the equal best car on the grid. His first season none the less has, by any standards, been extraordinary.

Now, I know it's a widespread assumption in the West that as countries modernize, they also westernize. This is an illusion. It's an assumption that modernity is a product simply of competition, markets and technology. It is not. It is also shaped equally by history and culture. China is not like the West, and it will not become like the West.

Google will be obliged either to accept Chinese regulations or exit the world's largest Internet market, with serious consequences for its long-term global ambitions. This is a metaphor for our times: America's most dynamic company cannot take on the Chinese government - even on an issue like free and open information - and win.

Although one of the key justifications for the Vietnam war was to prevent the spread of communism, the U.S. defeat was to produce nothing of the kind: apart from the fact that Cambodia and Laos became embroiled, the effects were essentially confined to Vietnam.

When Europe dominated, there were no or few feedback loops. Or, to put it another way, there were few, if any, consequences for its behaviour towards the non-western world: relations were simply too unequal.

There has always been something less than wholesome about New Labour. But Blair for a long time had an easy ride. There was the whopping majority. There was the relief that the Tories were finally gone. There was the grand hyperbole.

Stuart Hall was an utterly unique figure. Although he arrived at the age of 19 from Jamaica and spent the rest of his life here, he never felt at home in Britain. This juxtaposition was a crucial source of his strength and originality. Because of his colour and origin, he saw the country differently - not as a native, but as an outsider.

Following the end of the Cold War, there was much discussion concerning the point of NATO. In the event, it was reinvented as a means of reducing Russia's reach on its western frontiers and seeking to isolate it. Its former East European client states were admitted to NATO, as were the Baltic states.

Move beyond the educated elite, and the great majority in most countries outside Europe don't speak English.

There is a profound hypocrisy - and deep historical ignorance - when Europeans complain about the problems posed by the ethnic and religious minorities in their midst, for that is exactly what European colonial rule meant for peoples around the world.

Every major power always seeks to justify its action on moral grounds. Such behaviour is almost as old as the hills. The west has been a particularly vigorous exponent of this credo; and there is no reason to believe that China, for example, will be any different. But behind the moral rhetoric invariably lies interest and ideology.

The era when the United States was the dominant global power is steadily coming to an end, and it must find a way of acknowledging this and framing its ambitions and interests accordingly. Instead of claiming the right to continuing primacy in east Asia, for example, it should seek to share that primacy with China.

One of the extraordinary features of the Blair government has been its slavish support for the central tenets of Bush's foreign policy - above all, the war in Iraq. During the Cold War, the Wilson government resisted the suggestion that it should send troops to Vietnam.

It remains to be seen whether the more optimistic scenario for Sino-American relations can be realised. Much rests on the shoulders of the two leaders: Obama on this score has so far been disappointing; the early signs are that Xi is a highly confident leader who thinks big.

Labour was always aligned with the U.S. during the Cold War, but the ignominious implosion of communism reinforced the belief that no alternative to the prevailing common sense was possible.