Was it inevitable that China Post 15th century would decline?

This counter-argument, on the other hand, ignores that, until the Yuan, China as a place with an inherently centralized system of government doesn't exist. Prior to the Mongol conquest, Chinese dynasties had spent as much time fragmented and competing with each other as they had ruling over the whole of China and building vast empires.

It is only after the Yuan that you start getting smooth, relatively quick all-China transitions from dynasty to dynasty. Coincidentally, this is when China's position as the uncontested center of the world economically and technologically starts to slip.

Um... the Song dynasty was where the advances were made. You know, under a unified empire.

If what you say is true, why didn't India modernize first? It had so many small kingdoms.

But weren't most of China's pre-Yuan advances during the periods when China was united, rather than in the warring states periods?

Yes, exactly.

No. The Forbidden City was about glorifying the emperor and had no use to ordinary people. Neither did Zheng He's voyages, which China lost a lot of money on. The reconstruction of the Wall was arguably useful, but somehow China was eventually conquered by invaders from the north anyway.

Grand Canal?
 
I don't mean the uselessness of megaprojects, I mean your laughable claim that Ming China was not associated with any economical developments.

Well there was an influx of silver depending on how you define developments, but where there any positive developments that actually survived possibly 2-3 emperors?
 
Well there was an influx of silver depending on how you define developments, but where there any positive developments that actually survived possibly 2-3 emperors?

Sure. Various agricultural improvements. The rapid growth in both size and number of smaller cities (still huge for many places of Europe ATM), the development of places like Foshan (we know that during the High Qing Foshan alone was producing 34000 tons of steel produces annually, which is nearly twice the output of steel products from all of Great Britian before the Industrial Revolution - I don't have equivalent stats for Ming-era Foshan, but we know each steel factory had hundreds of workers employed, with factories specializing in different parts of the manufacturing process, etc), general improvement in private manufacturing, improvement in the stature of merchants, etc.

Broader societal changes.
 
Sure. Various agricultural improvements. The rapid growth in both size and number of smaller cities (still huge for many places of Europe ATM), the development of places like Foshan (we know that during the High Qing Foshan alone was producing 34000 tons of steel produces annually, which is nearly twice the output of steel products from all of Great Britian before the Industrial Revolution - I don't have equivalent stats for Ming-era Foshan, but we know each steel factory had hundreds of workers employed, with factories specializing in different parts of the manufacturing process, etc), general improvement in private manufacturing, improvement in the stature of merchants, etc.

Broader societal changes.

In many ways, China in the 19th century was a victim of its own success that was built by earlier Qing Emperors like Qianlong and Kangxi in the 17th and 18th century.

Its population grew from 100 million to 300 million during this period, largely thanks to crops from the Americas such as the potato and peanuts that enabled Chinese peasants to farm on hilltops. The population grew but the Qing Government's ability to account for all these people did not grow correspondingly.


As for 17th and 18th century PODs that might have helped China not have such a suspicious view of Western Trade, here is one.

The Jesuits actually played a large role in the early court of Kangxi and actually ran the imperial observatory, and the Emperor had a edict of toleration for the Christians in China. Jesuits were also hired as scientists and artists in Kangxi's court.

However, the Dominicans, Franciscans and Augustinians took a more hard line approach to their methods and alienated the Imperial court. If the pope decides to side with the Jesuits in the Chinese Rites controversy, that could maintain a sense of good will in the Qing Court in terms of Europeans and make them more receptive to European ideas and advances.
 
A different Chinese Rites Controversy does sound interesting, as a matter of fact. Although I don't know whether China will be converted, it still means that the Jesuits will have great relations with the emperors. You know, more open to westernization?
 
Of course, you can argue that up to the Opium Wars, China never really declined, it just stagnated while everybody else was moving ahead at breakneck speed.
 
Of course, you can argue that up to the Opium Wars, China never really declined, it just stagnated while everybody else was moving ahead at breakneck speed.

That can be argued as somewhat of a "decline".

From the business world what I understand is the worst thing a company can do is stay complacent while its competition surges. That's how many great companies in the past never moved into the future.

Early modern China truly was the Blockbuster of its time.
 
Of course, you can argue that up to the Opium Wars, China never really declined, it just stagnated while everybody else was moving ahead at breakneck speed.

Stagnation is also a myth. It kept changing and improving (philology is a good example), Europe (hardly "everyone else") just changed faster.
 
As a Chinese, I would say decline was rather inevitable, the emperor would look out his borders and see nothing but useless wasteland. Chinese (especially in the traditional power centre of the north) hadn't always been a fan of going out to sea either. Chinese emperors weren't noted as the brightest emperors either.
 
As a Chinese, I would say decline was rather inevitable, the emperor would look out his borders and see nothing but useless wasteland. Chinese (especially in the traditional power centre of the north) hadn't always been a fan of going out to sea either. Chinese emperors weren't noted as the brightest emperors either.

They had to make do with the knowledge that their society gave them at that particular time. Both Kangxi and Qianlong were extraordinary Emperors during the Qing period, and with some 17th or 18th century PODs could have changed China's outlook when it came to Europe.

I already suggested a different outcome to the Chinese rites Controversy where the Pope rules in favor of the Jesuits instead of the more aggressive Dominicans whose actions had alienated the Qing Court, and which led to Kangxi expelling the Christian missionaries.

Or we can have Qianlong have a less restrictive Canton system perhaps.

Another solution could be Japan never going into isolation following the Tokugawa, and China having a true long term geopolitical rival of that caliber would cause China to invest more in its navy perhaps and seek out Europeans against this rival.
 
They had to make do with the knowledge that their society gave them at that particular time. Both Kangxi and Qianlong were extraordinary Emperors during the Qing period, and with some 17th or 18th century PODs could have changed China's outlook when it came to Europe.

I already suggested a different outcome to the Chinese rites Controversy where the Pope rules in favor of the Jesuits instead of the more aggressive Dominicans whose actions had alienated the Qing Court, and which led to Kangxi expelling the Christian missionaries.

Or we can have Qianlong have a less restrictive Canton system perhaps.

Another solution could be Japan never going into isolation following the Tokugawa, and China having a true long term geopolitical rival of that caliber would cause China to invest more in its navy perhaps and seek out Europeans against this rival.

IMO, if Japan was more open, THEY would be seeking out Europeans against their Chinese behemoth rival :p
 
Stagnation is also a myth. It kept changing and improving (philology is a good example), Europe (hardly "everyone else") just changed faster.

With the caveat that reliable data only goes back to the very end of the Ming, incomes were in slow decline throughout the era. The parts of Europe that industrialized first were the opposite, and showed long-term wage increases starting in the 17c.
 
With the caveat that reliable data only goes back to the very end of the Ming, incomes were in slow decline throughout the era. The parts of Europe that industrialized first were the opposite, and showed long-term wage increases starting in the 17c.

The late Ming were not good at all. Chongzhen, for example... He had fairly good intentions, but gosh, did he think executing Yuan Chonghuan would help?
 
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