Map 5. Boundary of the Qin Dynasty at its Greatest Extent, c.206 BC
Map 6. Boundary of the Han Dynasty at its Greatest Extent, 141-87 BC
Historically, relatively advanced forms of agriculture enabled societies to sustain large populations and provided propitious conditions for the development of organized states; China was a classic example of this phenomenon. It is now believed that millet and rice first appeared in northern and southern China respectively 12,000 years ago, earlier even than in Mesopotamia, where sedentary agriculture began about 8,000 years ago. Although North China has long sustained ‘dry’ agriculture by way of cereals, barley and various kinds of millet, it was the wet cultivation of rice, which developed slowly from the beginning of the first millennium and which was in full swing by its end, that was later to give a major boost to Chinese agriculture, resulting in a shift in the economic centre of gravity from the central plain to the lower Yangzi basin. New methods of wet rice cultivation were introduced, including the planting of seedlings, early ripening varieties of rice, the systematic selection of species, new tools such as a chain with paddles which made it possible to lift water from one level to another, and sophisticated forms of irrigation. These made Chinese wet rice farming one of the most advanced agricultural techniques in the world, generating extremely high yields. [201] During the Song dynasty (AD 960-1279), these advanced techniques were generalized across large tracts of the country, pushing south as the frontier was steadily extended. [202] Sustained by agrarian prosperity, the population expanded rapidly, almost doubling between 1000 and 1300. [203] Between AD 500 and 900 bricked roads were built across the middle of the Chinese empire such that the capital (known then as Chang’an, now as Xi’an) was only eight to fourteen days’ travel from any reasonably sized city. Even more significant was the spread of water transport in the form of rivers, canals and coastal shipping. These various waterway systems became part of an integral network that was to form the basis of a nationwide market that steadily took shape by 1200. As Marco Polo, a resident of Venice, Europe ’s greatest seaport, observed of the Yangzi in the late thirteenth century:
I assure you that this river runs for such a distance and through so many regions and there are so many cities on its banks that truth to tell, in the amount of shipping it carries and the total volume and value of its traffic, it exceeds all the rivers of the Christians put together and their seas into the bargain. [204]
The Chinese economy became increasingly commercialized, with paper money firmly established in both north and south China by the twelfth century. A large inter-regional trade developed in both luxuries and staples like rice. During the Song dynasty, coastal trade flourished and extended to Japan and South-East Asia. Urbanization proceeded apace, such that by the late thirteenth century Hangzhou, China’s largest city, had a population of almost 7 million, making China by far the most urbanized society in the world, its cities accounting for around 10 per cent of the population. [205] The cities were not, however, to play the same role as centres of political and personal freedom as those in Europe: autonomous urban development was constrained by China ’s centralized imperial structure, a pattern that only began to change in the twentieth century. Encouraged by the government, there was a flowering of learning and a wave of remarkable inventions during the Song dynasty, especially in the century and a half of the Northern Song (960-1126). [206] What is sometimes described as China’s Renaissance witnessed the development of a classical examination system, the birth of neo-Confucianism, the invention of gunpowder, mortars and woodblock printing, the spread of books, and major advances in mathematics, natural sciences, astronomy and geography. [207] A large spinning machine was invented that was to fall only slightly short of what might — at least theoretically — have ushered in an industrial revolution along the lines that Britain was to experience centuries later. [208] In contrast, Europe ’s Renaissance only began two centuries after the end of the Northern Song. The diffusion of books enabled by woodblock printing, the publication of large encyclopedias, the growing number of candidates who entered the examination system for the civil service, the great advances made in mathematics (particularly the development of algebra) and the emergence of a gentry-scholar class marked China out as the most literate and numerate society in the world; only Islam could compare, with Europe lagging well behind. [209] During the medieval period Europe was to borrow extensively from China ’s innovations, including paper, the compass, the wheelbarrow, the sternpost rudder, the spinning wheel and woodblock printing. [210] China was by far the most advanced civilization in East Asia, exercising a huge influence on its neighbours, many of which had long been tributary states of China, paying tribute to the emperor and acknowledging the superiority of Chinese culture.
After 1300 this efflorescence began to subside and China ’s medieval economic revolution gave way to a period of stagnation that only came to an end in 1500. The Mongol invasion marked the closure of the Song period, in many respects China ’s finest age, and led to the establishment of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) and the incorporation of China into the Mongol Empire. It was to prove traumatic, with the Chinese finding themselves under alien rule and reduced to lowly status. There were several reasons for the economic slowdown. The dynamic by which China had expanded from its heartlands southwards had involved the addition of rich new farmlands, but this area began to fill up with migrants from the north; as a consequence there was growing pressure on resources, most notably food. [211] The spectacular advances in science, meanwhile, started to dry up. The Song dynasty had placed considerable emphasis on the importance of trade and contact with foreigners, notably Japan and South-East Asia, but also beyond to Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent and even the east coast of Africa. This process slowly went into reverse during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). [212] In 1371 the Ming dynasty forbade coastal people from sailing overseas because of the threat posed to Chinese shipping by large-scale Japanese piracy. An edict in 1390 declared: ‘At present the ignorant people of the Liang-Kuang, Chekiang and Fukien are frequently in communication with the outer barbarians, with whom they carry on a smuggling trade. This is therefore strictly prohibited.’ [213]There followed over the next three centuries a succession of restrictions banning first private and then government trade. By 1757 Canton was the only port from which legal trade could be conducted, as Lord Macartney was to complain.
The successful reconstruction of the Grand Canal linking northern China with the rich rice fields of the Yangzi in 1411 was a crucial moment, signalling a greatly reduced need for coastal shipping and, therefore, also for a navy. For almost four and a half centuries, from the consolidation of the Song Empire until the remarkable seafaring expeditions of the early Ming (1405-33), China was the greatest maritime nation in the world — using big compartmented ships (with up to four decks, four or five masts, and a dozen sails), steered by a sternpost rudder, guided by charts and compass, and able to carry 500 men. [214] The ships used by Zheng He for his great voyages to South-East Asia, the Indian Ocean and the east coast of Africa in the early fifteenth century were by far the most advanced in the world. From the moment the voyages were completed, however, China ’s maritime prowess fell into steep decline. In 1436 the construction of seagoing ships was banned and the number of smaller vessels built was reduced. The reason for this growing isolation and introspection is not entirely clear. It would appear that the failure to continue with Zheng He’s great voyages was the result of several factors: a political shift in the attitude of the Ming dynasty; the moving of the imperial capital from Nanjing to Beijing in 1421, which led to heightened sensitivities about the northern border and reduced interest in oceanic and coastal priorities; and growing concern about both the cost of the maritime voyages and the relative failure of the military expeditions against the Mongols in the north. [215] There was also an anxiety that the coastal centres, with their links to other lands, might act as an alternative source of power, the maintenance of social order
and control always being a prime consideration for Chinese rulers. Perhaps also the underlying Chinese belief that their civilization was far superior to those of the barbarians (especially the nomadic cultures to its north, [216] which intensified under the Ming in an ethnic reaction to the previous Mongol rule, made such an autarchic and isolationist view seem natural.
Between 1500 and 1800, stagnation gave way to vigorous economic growth and reasonable prosperity. There was a steady increase in the food supply, due to an increase in land under cultivation — the result of migration and settlement in the western and central provinces, greater productivity (including the use of new crops like corn and peanuts) and better irrigation. [217] These developments sustained a fivefold increase in China ’s population between 1400 and 1800, whereas between 1300 and 1400 it had fallen sharply. [218] China ’s performance during this period has tended to be overshadowed by the dynamism of the earlier medieval economic revolution; unlike during the Song dynasty, this later growth was achieved with relatively little new invention. In the eighteenth century China remained the world’s largest economy, followed by India, with Europe as a secondary player. Adam Smith, who saw China as an exemplar of market-based development, observed in 1776 that ‘ China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.’ [219] It was not until 1850, indeed, that London was to displace Beijing as the world’s largest city. [220]
A model of one of Zheng He’s ships, shown in comparison to one of Christopher Columbus’s
Map 7. Zheng He’s Expeditions
As we saw in Chapter 2, Britain was able to escape the growing resource constraints at the end of the eighteenth century by deploying the resources of its colonies, together with an abundant supply of accessible domestic coal. But what exactly happened to China, which enjoyed neither? There was almost certainly enough capital available, especially given the relatively small amounts involved in the take-off of the cotton industry in Britain. Although Chinese merchants did not enjoy the same kind of independent and privileged status that they did in Britain, always being subordinate to the bureaucracy and the landowning gentry, they were widely respected and enjoyed growing wealth and considerable power. [221] There may have been rather less protection for investment in comparison with Europe, but nonetheless there were plenty of very large Chinese enterprises. China ’s markets were no less sophisticated than those of Europe and were much longer established. Mark Elvin argues that the reason for China ’s failure was what he describes as a ‘high-level equilibrium trap’. [222] China ’s shortage of resources in its densely populated heartlands became increasingly acute: there was a growing lack of wood, fuel, clothing fibres, draught animals and metals, and there was an increasing shortage of good farmland. Hectic deforestation continued throughout the nineteenth century and in some places the scarcity of wood was so serious that families burned little but dung, roots and the husks of corn. In provinces such as Henan and Shandong, where population levels were at their most dense, forest cover fell to between 2 per cent and 6 per cent of the total land area, which was between one-twelfth and one-quarter of the levels in European countries like France at the time. [223] The pressure on land and other resources was driven by the continuing growth of population in a situation of relative technological stasis. Lacking a richly endowed overseas empire, China had no exogenous means by which it could bypass the growing constraints.
With the price of labour falling, profit margins declining and static markets, there was no incentive to invest in labour-saving machinery; instead there was a premium on conserving resources and fixed capital. In such a situation there was little reason to engage in the kind of technological leap into the factory system that marked Britain ’s Industrial Revolution. In other words, it was rational for the Chinese not to invest in labour-saving machinery. As Elvin argues:
In the context of a civilization with a strong sense of economic rationality, with an appreciation of invention such that shrines were erected to historic inventors… and with notable mechanical gifts, it is probably a sufficient explanation of the retardation of technological advance. [224]
With growing markets and a rising cost of labour, on the other hand, investment in labour-saving machinery was entirely rational in the British context and was to unleash a virtuous circle of invention, application, increased labour productivity and economic growth; in contrast, China remained trapped within its old parameters. In Britain the domestic system, based on small-scale family units of production, proved to be the precursor of the factory system. In China, where such rural industrialization was at least as developed as it was in Britain, it did not. While Britain suggested a causal link between the domestic and the factory systems, this was not true in China: widespread rural industrialization did not lead to a Chinese industrial revolution. [225]
THE CHINESESTATE
The most striking difference between Europe and China was not in the timing of their respective industrializations, which in broad historical terms was similar, separated by a mere two centuries, but rather the disparity between the sizes of their polities, which has persisted for at least two millennia and whose effects have been enormous. It is this, above all, which explains why Europe is such a poor template for understanding China. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe was never again to be ruled, notwithstanding the ambitions of Napoleon and Hitler, by an imperial regime with the capacity to exercise centralized control over more or less the entire continent. Political authority, instead, was devolved to many small units. Even with the creation of the modern nation-state system, and the unification of Germany and Italy, Europe remained characterized by its division into a multi-state system. In contrast, China retained the imperial state system that emerged after the intense interstate competition — the Warring States period — that ended in the third century BC, though this was to assume over time a range of different forms, including, as in the case of the Mongol Yuan and the Manchu Qing dynasties, various phases of foreign rule. [226] Apart from Outer Mongolia, China’s borders today remain roughly coterminous with those the country acquired during the period of its greatest geographical reach under the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). China ’s equilibrium state has been that of a unified agrarian empire in contrast to Europe, which for two millennia has been an agglomeration of states. [227]
From this follows a fundamental difference in contemporary Chinese and European attitudes: while the Chinese attach greater importance to unity than literally anything else, the Europeans overwhelmingly believe in the nation-state rather than European-wide sovereignty, the European Union notwithstanding. The underlying strength of the Chinese desire for unity is illustrated by the fact that, while the rise of nationalism in Europe in the nineteenth century resulted in the break-up of old empires and the creation of many new states, this has never happened, and shows no sign of happening, in China. The Chinese commitment to unity has three dimensions: the fundamental priority attached to unity by both the state and the people; the central role expected of the state in ensuring that this unity is maintained; and a powerful sense of a common Chinese identity that underpins this overarching popular commitment to unity. This unity could never be taken for granted: China has spent around half its history in varying degrees of division, which, in the light of the country’s size and diversity (far greater than that of Europe), is not surprising. As a result of its attachment to unity, China has largely escaped the intra-state wars that have scarred Europe ’s history over many centuries, though its periods of disunity and fragmentation have often carried a very heavy cost in terms of war and famine, notably from the mid nineteenth to the mid twentieth century, when it was chronically divided. [228] China ’s frequent experience of disunity and its baleful consequences have served to reinforce its commitment to unity, a tradition that began with Confucius — who, living during the Warring States period, was witness to the huge cost of instability and conflict, and preached the importance of harmony.
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