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Protestant Reformation?That's always the right answer! To every question!
BLAME BRITAIN!
Rome fell?
BLAME BRITAIN!
Hitler taking over poland?
BLAME BRITAIN!
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Firstly, I wonder why some people insist that in 19th century, China was not that much behind Europe. I believe the difference was huge. Mind you, Russia was significantly more modernized than China, and still hopelessly backward in comparison with western Europe.
We should not stick to ones ability to produce 'things' when judging development. Pakistan has a nuclear weapon, and skyscrapers stand in many African cities. Yet these societies remain undeveloped. Qing ability to produce rifles and cannons also does not mean that they lagged 'not far' behind.
It is the social structure and the state of mind which determine the level of development. Chinese society was backward, illiterate, and living in conditions unknown in Europe since middle ages. Actually, the Chinese social life stagnated for many centuries.
At the moment when such a society face the West (on the level the West reached during 19th century), a great turmoil, indeed, some kind of revolution, is inevitable. Far better advanced monarchies in Russia and Turkey collapsed, too, and for good reasons.
There was actually only one way out: Replacing Emperor-led bureaucratic apparatus with an oligarchy of partially modernized tyrants, who would impose modernized methods, but not freedom, not liberal-capitalist ideas of the West. That is what happened both in Russia and China. Be it Chiang Kai-shek or Mao Zedong does not make that much of a difference.
I believe the only way to maintain Qing is the Japanese way, i.e. keeping the Emperor as a honorary and symbolic figure formally leading the nation, but deprived of any real power.
We should not stick to ones ability to produce 'things' when judging development. Pakistan has a nuclear weapon, and skyscrapers stand in many African cities. Yet these societies remain undeveloped. Qing ability to produce rifles and cannons also does not mean that they lagged 'not far' behind.
It is the social structure and the state of mind which determine the level of development. Chinese society was backward, illiterate, and living in conditions unknown in Europe since middle ages. Actually, the Chinese social life stagnated for many centuries.
At the moment when such a society face the West (on the level the West reached during 19th century), a great turmoil, indeed, some kind of revolution, is inevitable. Far better advanced monarchies in Russia and Turkey collapsed, too, and for good reasons.
There was actually only one way out: Replacing Emperor-led bureaucratic apparatus with an oligarchy of partially modernized tyrants, who would impose modernized methods, but not freedom, not liberal-capitalist ideas of the West. That is what happened both in Russia and China. Be it Chiang Kai-shek or Mao Zedong does not make that much of a difference.
I believe the only way to maintain Qing is the Japanese way, i.e. keeping the Emperor as a honorary and symbolic figure formally leading the nation, but deprived of any real power.
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Yeah Qing China fell behind but it's people were hardly behind Europe in living standards untill population explosion meant there wasn't enough food or jobs to go around and it was that coupled with it's isolationism and arrogance that allowed the British to mess them up with Opium and paralize the nation.
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It was precisely the living standard where the difference was big. Many visitors from Europe (even long before 19th century) described the appaling poverty among Chinese.
That' was during the 19th century though, things were not particularly bad during the 18th or the 17th.
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"Development" is absolutely about economic output, infrastructure, and technology. The point is that China's top-level institutions were failing but the society as a whole was not the trainwreck it's been made out to be until the long chain of disasters starting around 1840 and not really ending until the 1970s. The mid-19th century is when Chinese living standards collapsed due internally to overpopulation and war, and externally to the growing productivity of the West.
Yes, after about 500-year long stagnation, Chinese GDP per capita began decrease about the time you indicate. But at that time British GDP p/c was already 3 to 4 times higher. Infrastructure and technology were medieval, primitive compared to Europe.
I'd be very interested in the methodology that shows total stagnation of the Chinese economy since 1300.
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It's not my original research or idea. Historians came to conclusion that there's no evidence for innovations in technology or social behaviour during that period. Qing era was specific in that the society grew extensively, i.e. more people, more land cultivated, but overall level per capita remained the same. New methods were not introduced, only applied on larger scale.
Naturally, I'm not a professional historian to make my own research and verify the above stated. I reproduce what I've read in books written by specialists.
All in all, it's not that surprising. We live within Western society, and the ethos of permanent development is deeply rooted in our minds. But that is quite special. Large part of history of human societies is dominated by stagnation. Take Roman Empire for example. From about 1st century CE, the Roman society did not actually develop into more sophisticated, innovations were very rare, indeed, population and GDP per capita declined. This lasted for centuries.
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I'm an old-fashioned guy, I prefer reading printed books. Wikipedia ofers this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
The figures shown for China roughly confirm my stance.
Who are you reading?
There was considerable social development with increased urbanisation and commercialisation during Ming dynasty that continued during Qing as well. There were also technological innovations, though they weren`t as notable as those of earlier eras.
Maq seems to be referring to Angus Maddison's estimates. He's one of the few scholars to attempt this kind of very long-range estimate so his findings tend to be taken at face value. One of the other scholars to have attempted this, Paul Bairoch, had different findings, and even Maddison's have several caveats that make this less of a clear-cut case of "Europe rich, Asia poor."
I happen to have a book on this very topic on hand, and it references Maddison at a few points. I quote:
The main takeaway here is that there is general agreement on the state of the world circa 1400, but while Maddison projects a steady, gradual rise in Europe and stagnation elsewhere from that time, other scholars see Asian economies surging ahead approximately 1400-1700 with Europe experiencing a surge of its own through a mix of cyclical decline in Asia, and the rapid advance of mechanization in parts of the West. Furthermore:
In short, there is a "PPP" issue in comparing historical Chinese and European GDP, as it was much cheaper to subsist in China due to more efficient agriculture. In effect the historical GDP of Europe is driven up by the fact that Europeans paid higher prices for the same goods- this does not actually translate into superior standards of living. Maddison's work finds consistently higher GDP per capita in Europe starting around 1400 but also acknowledges the lower cost of living in especially China and India- it's not seen as a clear indicator of better quality of life.
Regarding the idea that there was no economic or social development in China after Song times:
In short, China's economic expansion during Ming and Qing periods was both extensive (bringing new lands under cultivation, increasing the population) and intensive (improving efficiency, integrating more closely with regional and world markets, deepening the impact of finance and investment).
I could go on.
I happen to have a book on this very topic on hand, and it references Maddison at a few points. I quote:
Andre Gunder Frank said:
The main takeaway here is that there is general agreement on the state of the world circa 1400, but while Maddison projects a steady, gradual rise in Europe and stagnation elsewhere from that time, other scholars see Asian economies surging ahead approximately 1400-1700 with Europe experiencing a surge of its own through a mix of cyclical decline in Asia, and the rapid advance of mechanization in parts of the West. Furthermore:
Andre Gunder Frank said:
In short, there is a "PPP" issue in comparing historical Chinese and European GDP, as it was much cheaper to subsist in China due to more efficient agriculture. In effect the historical GDP of Europe is driven up by the fact that Europeans paid higher prices for the same goods- this does not actually translate into superior standards of living. Maddison's work finds consistently higher GDP per capita in Europe starting around 1400 but also acknowledges the lower cost of living in especially China and India- it's not seen as a clear indicator of better quality of life.
Regarding the idea that there was no economic or social development in China after Song times:
Andre Gunder Frank said:
In short, China's economic expansion during Ming and Qing periods was both extensive (bringing new lands under cultivation, increasing the population) and intensive (improving efficiency, integrating more closely with regional and world markets, deepening the impact of finance and investment).
I could go on.
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Those quotes are from Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. I haven't read World Accumulation.
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Right now History of China by John F. Fairbank. (For the second time, as I realized I need to refresh my knowledge on Song-Ming-Qing eras.)
Honestly, when reading modern references to contemporary witnesses, you can find wide range of opinions and impressions. Many travellers, par example, spoke favourably about Chinese huge and rich cities with good civil order. Others at the same time turned their eyes to other direction and described poverty and desperation of many.
This is partly due to one characteristic fact: Life in China consisted of ever repeating cycles of temporal prosperity quickly turning into disasters. Chinese social order traditionally failed to face bad events. Within several years you could visit the same location, once thriving in prosperity, other time struck by famine, plague, flood, drought, earthquake, war, civil disorder, bandits, uprisings...
I believe it was a deficiency of Chinese centralized and austere social system. Chinese believe that a strong and diligent government should ensure safety and social resilience. And it did, to a degree. But once the bad fortunes exceeded certain level, the system failed, and people firmly relying on it became helpless. (I wonder whether this story will repeat itself in contemporary China.)
That's not only my personal impression, some historians have described it in similar way. This feature makes extremely difficult to make estimates of production, or even population in China - both varied dramatically. But I say that the Chinese never learned their lesson. They still firmly believed in their ancient Confucian philosophy, and if the government failed to be strong enough to protect its 'children' this time, we must create even stronger government for better future. (Precisely my sarcastic motto: If you can't fix it with a hammer, try using bigger hammer.)
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In short, don't ask for source. They are many. And many others say quite the opposite.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...rest-when-and-why.962654/page-3#post-21709394
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