Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 Opportunities and challenges in China's economic development
- 2 Why the Scientfic and Industrial Revolutions bypassed China
- 3 The great humiliation and the Socialist Revolution
- 4 The comparative advantage-defying, catching-up strategy and the traditional economic system
- 5 Enterprise viability and factor endowments
- 6 The comparative advantage-following development strategy
- 7 Rural reform and the three rural issues
- 8 Urban reform and the remaining issues
- 9 Reforming the state-owned enterprises
- 10 The financial reforms
- 11 Deflationary expansion and building a new socialist countryside
- 12 Improving the market system and promoting fairness and efficiency for harmonious development
- 13 Relflections on neoclassical theories
- Appendix Global imbalances, reserve currency, and global economic governance
- Index
2 - Why the Scientfic and Industrial Revolutions bypassed China
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 Opportunities and challenges in China's economic development
- 2 Why the Scientfic and Industrial Revolutions bypassed China
- 3 The great humiliation and the Socialist Revolution
- 4 The comparative advantage-defying, catching-up strategy and the traditional economic system
- 5 Enterprise viability and factor endowments
- 6 The comparative advantage-following development strategy
- 7 Rural reform and the three rural issues
- 8 Urban reform and the remaining issues
- 9 Reforming the state-owned enterprises
- 10 The financial reforms
- 11 Deflationary expansion and building a new socialist countryside
- 12 Improving the market system and promoting fairness and efficiency for harmonious development
- 13 Relflections on neoclassical theories
- Appendix Global imbalances, reserve currency, and global economic governance
- Index
Summary
This chapter analyzes why China, before the modern era, was more advanced than the West in its economy, science, and technology but was then left far behind. Constant technological innovation and upgrading are the basis for a nation's long-term economic development. In premodern times, when invention was based mostly on the experience of peasants and craftsmen, China enjoyed an enormous advantage because of its large population. But that advantage disappeared with the Industrial Revolution in the West. Why? Because controlled experiments by scientists in labs replaced experience as the basis of invention.
The precondition for the Industrial Revolution was the Scientfic Revolution, which featured mathematics and controlled experiments. The Scientific Revolution did not take place in China because its civil service system discouraged talented persons from acquiring the capacity for mathematics and controlled experiments. For the same reason, technological innovation in China failed to change from an experience-based model to a science- and experiment-based model. So, it was left far behind when the West made that shift. But that does not mean however that the Chinese did not have the capacity for industrial and scientfic revolution. In modern China the disincentive to learn mathematics and conduct controlled experiments has been removed, so China will again definitely contribute to scientfic and technological progress, as it did in the old days.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Demystifying the Chinese Economy , pp. 22 - 54Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011