>A new study by Stephen Broadberry of Oxford University, Hanhui Guan of Peking University and David Daokui Li of Tsinghua University in Beijing argues that China has indeed lagged behind Europe for centuries. It compares levels of GDP per person in China, England, Holland, Italy and Japan since around the year 1000. It finds the only period when China was richer than the others was during the 11th century. By that time China had invented gunpowder, the compass, movable type, paper money and the blast furnace.
>But according to Mr Broadberry and his co-authors, Italy had caught up with China before 1300, and Holland and England by 1400. Around 1800 Japan overtook China as the richest Asian country. Chinese GDP per person fell relentlessly during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). In 1620, it was roughly the same as it had been in 980. By 1840, it had fallen by almost a third (see chart).
>These findings challenge a hitherto common belief that China and Europe had similar living standards for centuries until the West’s industrial revolution began in the late 18th century: a point often referred to by historians as the “great divergence”.
But by the time they're done industrializing, China will dwarf Europe in terms of GDP. Not even the United States will be as big.
William Foster
They were heavily centralized in their high period prior to the Mongol conquest, and the Manchurian Qing dynasty were backwards isolationists who forcefully decentralized China and made sure that everyone was a backwoods mud farmer by the time Europeans arrived
Joseph Miller
>1990 international dollars
Biggest red flag right here. If you understand economics, you will notice the flaw as well.
Hudson Rivera
im confused
Charles Wilson
Good wording, but it lacks context.
Italy/Holland/England are tiny compared to China. So what does the wording mean? It means on average, China as a whole is poorer than Italy, one of the richest if not THE richest place in Europe at the time.
However the richest Chinese cities are still very rich if not richer than Italy at least during the 1300s.
So what happened during that time? Did China regress and stagnate? Or did the Europeans found a new source of wealth that propelled them upwards? The answer is both, but much more on the second part. Chinese dynasties experienced wealth drains and hardships throughout the centuries to come. This was due to the Mongol's ruthlessness and also the coming turmoil to come. Wars and turmoils in Europe in the Chinese scale didn't exist in Europe till the WW1 and WWII.
Few hundred thousands? That's nothing. Chinese were casually and consistently waging wars that would kill millions of people at time. However that didn't mean it was always like this. Periods of long peace reigns in China.
While the Chinese state were in turmoil, Europe was busy plundering gold from the New World. It was busy building its trade routes with the Old World. There is also the fact that the Europe had a great field day at the Qing's expense. Still, the main part is colonial exploitation in Europe propelled their GDP and at the same time turmoil in China slowed their growth. They never really stagnated, only experienced periods of slow growth due to large scale wars/famines. China was too large to stagnate unless the whole country was underseige at the time from multiple forces (during Qing).
Joseph Scott
All previous estimates utilized a somewhat different definition of international dollars. For example, Angus Maddison's seminal work "Contours of the World Economy."
This new analysis does not actually reveal much more than what he already found. The new authors just cherrypicked the three richest per capita places in Europe post-1600.
If you include all of Europe, China was ahead until 1700. That is the problem with the new study, it ignores the rest of Europe and focuses on only three "European" nations.
Meanwhile Japan, a nation know in the 1600's for impressive literacy and life expectancy, is poorer than China until the 1800's? That is another question for this new study.
t. International Development economist who works in DC at the IMF (although I am low level)
Matthew Nelson
Italy, Holland/Flanders, and England were the richest places in Medieval Europe along with northeastern France, it's pretty nitpicky to compare them to all of China.
