Economic History of China - Term Paper Example

 Economic History of China Industrial revolution made many changes in the world. It is the period between the 18th to the 19th century where most of the countries base their success today. During that time there was major changes in the Agricultural sector, manufacturing, mining and transport and communication. In the final phase of the industrial revolution most of the countries made sure the economy was able to be conducive and was able to produce and transport. What was happening in the northwest Europe and China? Pomeranz has got a large impact on the topic of divergence. He bases all his arguments to the 18th century. He explains more about the industrial revolution in the North West Europe and the parts of china that had developed. Pomeranz talks about the economic history which was very important. Many authors have come out to challenge China on the industrial revolution. It is argued out that the situation at Yangzi and the Pearl River deltas in the year 1750 were not that worse when compared to other developed areas that are in Europe (Pomeranz, 2000). This is how divergence came about. The industrialization in china was very slow and its market expansion took so long to grow and get to where the other nations were. In china the “Smithian” dynamics also did work as it was in the other countries. In this case they did not transform the basic possibilities. Most of the highly developed areas in china faced challenges in resources. The population growth however increased as a result of these. Industrialization did not just come automatically. The people of a country were the ones responsible for the growth of a region based on the efforts that they put in place. Most of the regions in China were just the same as the European mainland that brought about the mechanized industrialization. After sometime this somehow did not work out slowly. The argument is that most of the regions of the regions of China back then did divert away from focusing on the strong blockages and the developmental blind alleys. According to Professor LiBozhong he suggests that the economy should be challenged basing his views on the Qing Empire that existed from 1644 to 1911. It was termed to be the world’s largest national economy that ever existed. When it came to the 18th century when the industrial revolution began things changed and the population increased. During the 17th and the 18th century and there was a decrease per capita income. This is how the divergence began between the countries that had developed and the economy of china began to deteriorate within no time. That is when the industrial revolution was beginning. The political and the economic institutions that existed before the industrial revolution of the world played part in the failure of China not doing very well in the industrial revolution compared to the other countries that made progress. These historic constraints played a major role in the prevailing of china during the time of industrial revolution. China came to change its strategies on the economy in the 1970’s and this realization enabled many of the population of China to change from the poverty that existed all through before since the industrial revolution. The economy of China came out and revived due its planning of the economy and the expansion of the human capital and the competition between the manufacturing industries that existed in China’s 31 provinces. This helped so much in the reforming of the era-growth. The mid-Qing that existed in the year 1644 to 1911and the economy back then had really developed. LI Bozhong ,Kenneth Pomeranz, Jamesleeand R. Bin Wong have got various ways of explaining the economic history of China. Pomeranz explains his views in his book, The Great Divergence (2000) and he states that there was a little difference on per capita income or the economic structure when comparing the developed areas of China and Europe. With the British industrial revolution that is believed to have been doing better compared to the Europe’s industrial revolution pomeranz regards Britain as the head start to the industrial revolution and that it had very good strategies. Pomeranz says that what might have helped Britain a lot to get all the achievements was the cheap coal that they had. Britain was able to access its colonies regularly and so it was able to exploit its colonies without many problems. The reason unto why China was not able to capitalize on the earlier economic and technology is based on many arguments. During the rule of the Ming (1368-1644) and that of Qing (1644-1912) dynasties and the last republican period which existed in the year 1912-1949. The defeat of the national government which was headed by Chiang Kai-shek and the taking power of the people’s republic of China was where the basis of the economic history of China lies. During the rule of the dynasties it is believed that the economy and the society of china which existed back then did not bother much with the industrial revolution. It is said that the systems and the formation of the institutions affected the economy of China in a big way. The whole system that was used back then is seen to be very weird since even the mode they used to select their candidates by writing. The tax system then was based on registration and the assessment of the land that was owned as private. All this are the things that led to the poor industrialization of China during the industrial revolution. The civil service back then was dominated by commoners instead of aristocrats. All these political based changes were the ones that led to the long lasting transformations to economy. In this case land system changed from the large land holdings to the small holder ownership. These changes also brought about fewer restrictions to the people who stayed in the urban and the market grew for both the goods and their production and then the money came in and the commercial exchange became complete (Pomeranz 2000). The Yangzi River is said to be China’s most economically advanced region during the Qing (1644-1911). Li Bozhong says that the farming methods that led to the high yields during this period refer to as the Southern song. These methods of farming had led to the achievements of the Ming and Qing eras. The cultivation of the Champa rice variety was a very good idea that yielded a lot. Despite all the growth that had taken place during these times there growth became stagnant at one point. The biggest challenge that caused the stagnation of the growth is the growing population from 100 million to 400 million by the 18th century. China’s economy did grow despite this but then the output growth was confined to the margin that was extensive. However, as result the per capita income had risen. This condition of the rising of the per capita income was referred to as “smithian” in nature and this term came as a result of the increasing specialization and labor became divided. When it came to the 18th century the increase in population affected the Agriculture sector and by this time there were only small family farms with an average land of less than 5 acres. The population growth is the one that drives the economy of a country.Kenneth pomeranz’ (2000) says that pre-industrial living standards in the Yangzi China’s lower region helped theextensiveeconomic and the commercial advances. This helped the Qing Empire to be able to hold the high population that had become excess in the 18th century. Although in most of the Agricultural commodities were locally traded there was expansion in the commerce and the commercialization of the Agricultural products (Pomeranz, 2000). The great divergence was between the Chinese levels of per capita income compared to the other European countries. Kenneth Pomeranz’ widely reviewed the great divergence and went through all the patterns of the divergence and came up with his results on the matter. He reviewed the leading regions of China and Europe as a whole. He focuses on the lower Yangzi region and he reviews why the regional economy weakened. The Yangzi region was a great place where the trade flow entailed the shipments of the cotton and grains and other things to the destinations of the place and in return they got shipments of finished goods and textiles. The expansion of the productivity led to a good economy for China but then the lower Yangzi ended up getting higher prices for the imports of the materials. As a result the demand went down for the manufactured products and this brought the weakness in the regional economy. As for Mark Elvin (2010) he says that china had lacked innovations during that period and that they were not even able to come up with a homegrown modern science. Elvin went on and explains the factors that influenced the demand and the supply for the innovation and the new technologies and innovation of which are classified to be important in the growth of any nation. Some of the people suggest that on the issue of demand the growth of the population of China was the reason to the Malthusian pressures that had brought up the reducing of the wage rental ratio. These were the results of the reducing wage rental. It brought to the use of the labor using technology and the institutions using the labor absorbing institutions. These led to the taking away of the capital using the technical changes and the labor-saving that would have led to higher labor productivity resulting to the per capita incomes. The widespread development of the handicraft textiles did not encourage the coming of more capital- intensive factory production. Mark Elvin says that the economic forces in China were created to make the make the invention harder. Hestated that with the weakening labor and the more expensive resources and the capital and the surplus in the Agricultural sector led to per capita demand and income. He also considered the transport technologies and with the farming being so good and that no improvements could be made and the rational strategy or the peasant and the merchant alike tended in the direction not so much labor-saving machinery for the economizing and the fixed capital (Elvin 1973) When it comes to the supply the declining interest in in the science when it came to the educated people in China led to the slowing of the changing of the technology. Elvin says that there was negative attitude from the philosophers who were there towards the nature and this led to no advances in science to provide the advance in technology. We can say in general that the lack of innovation affected the industrial revolution in a big way. The political institutions played a major role in the facilitating of the industrial revolution. The European cities enjoyed the considerable anatomy of the development of their civil codes and their own charters. The Ming-Qing society did not involve itself in this whereas the institutional change was very important to the economic development in the Western Europe. We get to find out that the economic growth needs a strong state to secure their property rights. The rising of the European imperialism played a major role in China’s history of economics. This affected the political and the economic state of China at that time. The industrial obstacles to the economy come from the political economy analysis. The British and the traders from India intervened and they came up with India grown opium. China had to divert their inflow of the silver and after that a Qin court challenged the idea to stop the opium trade. The high official responsible for such matters did so and the outcomes were that British merchants asked for London’s protection. They termed this to be disruption of the trade and mercantile property and thereafter war broke because of this matter from the 1839-1842. The British applied force to Qing to agree with treaty which was referred to as the treaty of Nanking (1942). This led to the British taking the authority of Hong Kong and Qing was forced to accept the regime of free trade. It was to put in place five Chinese ports to the British merchants. All this happened despite China being a sovereign. This was a hindrance to the industrial revolution since China would not be able to make independent decision related to their economy and the welfare of the country. For most of the decisions to be made there was intervention from such countries that imposed imperialism to other countries for the sake of exploiting those countries for their own good and development of their countries. The treaty port system led to the loss of rapid economy transformation and according to Kenneth Pomeranz report. It shows that Britain is successful and the great divergence is widely seen between the Europeans and Asians incomes to the Britain where Britain is able to access cheap coal and also a good access to the land intensive goods. Li Hongzhang (1823-1901) mobilized the funds and made regional armies of militiamen and campaigns to fight and defeat the Taiping army which was involved in the Taiping Rebellion that prevailed in the 1850-1864. At this state no industrial revolution would be achieved. Some merchants had gone to other countries to trade and this was not good for the economy of China considering its state of instability at that time. In the year 1893 China gave an order to the Chinese merchants to come back to their country to practice trade and they would also receive pass to from the Chinese minister or consultant. They would be allowed to go abroad again to carry out business without any extortion as it was there before. China was defeated in the Sino-Japanese war that took place in the 1894 -1895 by a country that was not regarded to be strong during that time and. This was so shocking to China and mostly the public. As a result of the failure Japan intervened and was interested to implementing the 1896 treaty. The treaty was an agreement that allowed the foreigners the right to establish factories to the treaty ports. The defeat of the Navy had brought about one hundred day’s reform that was held at the southern province of Hunan. China went through a lot of humiliation whereas there was rapid modernization in Japan. The Qing constitutional movement of the 1903-1911 rejected the hundred day’s agenda (Pomeranz, 2000). China went through many crises before getting to where it is currently and during these moments that have been stated it was so difficult for china to make it and go through all this challenges. For the economy of China to grow it was so hard for China to achieve a good economy like the other nations. Other nations were able to take part in the industrious revolution fully without the problems like the ones witnessed in the case of China. The political aspects that were put in place during the rule of the two dynasties made it so hard to achieve the industrial revolution since the two dynasties did not comply with most of the industrial revolution. The Qing and Ming political system administration was very complicated though they had been successful during their error; they played a major role in the lack of facilitation of the Industrial Revolution effectively. The political systems that they used were regarded to be traditional and it somehow became very difficult for these systems to adapt to the new system of modernization. However, China was not that bad of since using the resources that were present in the country they tried to develop so their country with the limited resources and these political systems. when it came to Agriculture it was termed to have made a huge impact using its good Agricultural methods of Agriculture before the industrial revolution. This was very possible when the population of China was not high at around one hundred million but when the population drastically shot from 100 million to 400 million people. It became challenging for China to handle this mass population since the rates of the per capita income had increased in a big way. In the 19th century it was a big transformation for China since it achieved a lot of things. China back in the year 1800 was the world’s largest national economyand for many years China declined in terms of economy at a higher rate. China took three years to recover its loss. They have achieved to make their economy at a very fast and recommendable rate since 1960-1970. China had not stabilized since the country back then had not yet achieved a lot since most of the people of China still went through inadequate diet and in most cases no savings (Elvin, 1973). China’s boom began in the 1970 and has shaped the economy of China’s economic structure. It led to the bringing down the importance of Agricultural production and the employment and has brought up new other methods such as raising the number of industries and services that are meant to bring about urbanization. Most of the changes in China began in the year 1949 when the People’s Republic Party of China (PRC) took over from the Qing emperor and that marked the end of Qing era and bringing in the PRC. Since then China tried to come up with strategies that would refurbish the country to the same place that they were, to be the world’s largest economic country where they were in before the industrial revolution. Since then China has increased the Industrial enterprises. China has really achieved a lot in the recent years and with that same pace China seems to be able to beat the world’s superpower in terms of economy in the near future. References Kenneth Pomeranz. (2000).The Great Divergence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mark Elvin. (1973). The Pattern of the Chinese Past. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Read More