2 - Going Global 1.0

Summary

Chapter 2 is the first of five chapters that highlights the interconnections between Western and non-Western agency in the making of the first global economy (FGE), which existed between roughly 1500 and 1850. This chapter re-introduces China as an agent of the FGE, adopting a via media between the Sinocentrism of key parts of the California School on the one hand and Eurocentrism/Eurofetishism on the other (i.e., China's role in the FGE was more important than Eurocentrism allows for but was less pronounced than Sinocentrism presumes). Overall, it reveals how China was open to global trade and was an important (though not the key) driver of it. It critiques all of the standard Eurocentric claims concerning China's isolation from foreign trade, revealing as myths: the realisation of the state's official bans on foreign trade (section 1); the dominance of the Europeans in Chinese trade and the dominance of China over Britain (section 2); the Chinese tribute system (section 3); the Canton System (section 4); and China's heavily protectionist trade regime (section 5). The chapter closes with a detailed analysis as to why Qing China moved to freer trade after 1684 while Britain moved in the opposite direction to extreme protectionism.