Why was ancient China more advanced than Europe ?
- Thread starter Dude_guy
- Start date
Bear in mind that for a considerable amount of that time period, most of Europe lacked organized states and literacy. The comparison probably shouldn't be between China and Europe, but between China and the Mediterranean.
I also note how South Asia and Persia tend to get left out of these "civilizational comparisons". India had an economy and population of comparable size to China's, which makes it particularly odd.
I also note how South Asia and Persia tend to get left out of these "civilizational comparisons". India had an economy and population of comparable size to China's, which makes it particularly odd.
kholieken
Banned
- Geography, Northern China Plain which relatively flat and contain two very big rivers.
- Climate ?, less dry than most Med, warmer than most Europe.
- Rice ?, more productive calories per acre than weath and barley
- Agricultural Tech, seed drill and iron plow which enable higher population density.
- Higher Fertility from pacific rim volcano
- Luck, should never be underestimated since we only have limited number of civilization as comparison.
- no Bronze Age collapse and Sea People invasion
- Gobi Desert, which hinder nomad invasion.
- Climate ?, less dry than most Med, warmer than most Europe.
- Rice ?, more productive calories per acre than weath and barley
- Agricultural Tech, seed drill and iron plow which enable higher population density.
- Higher Fertility from pacific rim volcano
- Luck, should never be underestimated since we only have limited number of civilization as comparison.
- no Bronze Age collapse and Sea People invasion
- Gobi Desert, which hinder nomad invasion.
BlondieBC
Banned
I have the Han and the Roman Empire as roughly equal technology wise, so to me it is a different question based on different facts. Why did two areas with great transportation routes have such different histories? My answers is that China was better able to hold off the barbarians (those strong in military, weak in tech). Or put another way, the Great Wall was a huge success compared to the Roman frontier. And we also have the issue of Islam splitting the area in half. Islam - Too weak to united the Med Sea Basin, too strong to be kept in the Desert. Just imagine if Islam had opened up in China, and split China into two warring camps, or a religion like Islam. So IMO, the POD to make the equal by buffing the Romans are fairly easy.
- Avoid Islam. Avoid Christianity splitting into two groups that fought.
- I think if the Romans had been able to hold a line of river farther east (i.e. Not lose what we call Germany), the various barbarians may have been repelled.
- Why not have Rome build much better fortresses on the border. Fortresses work.
- A hundred things we call luck. You can still have dynasty fall, but not at the wrong time. Still have Barbarians break in, but not at the right time.
- O, seems like China had a easier time getting new Emperor without a civil war than Rome. Fix this issue in the Roman Empire might be enough.
Part of it is just China had a greater head start. The Shang Dynasty was founded around 1,500 BC. This was a bit later than the earliest literate state in Europe (the Minoans) but roughly contemporaneous with Mycenaean Greece. Of course, during that period, Greek culture was more the furthest north extension of the Near Eastern civilization complex than anything. The rest of Europe was still pre-literate, and the bulk of it didn't become "civilized" until after the fall of Rome.
It undoubtedly helps that China didn't have anything resembling a "dark age" either. Western civilization had the Bronze Age collapse, and then the fall of Rome. China had warring states periods where the empire wasn't unified, but there was never a general regression of knowledge, infrastructure, or technology that lasted more than a few generations.
I think the advent of a meritocratic civil service helped a great deal at once. It was a constant with China from the Han Dynasty onward. It ensured that there was great continuity in terms of culture and governance even when the dynasties changed over (or even when foreign invaders took over).
Geography also helped. Northern and Central China - where the core of the Chinese polity formed - is a mostly flat plain. Once there was great cultural-linguistic unity across China, this allowed for new innovations to be transmitted across the state very rapidly. Unfortunately starting in 1500 it was arguably more of a hindrance, because China's lack of nearby competitors meant it focused on slow improvements to maintain social stability rather than the wild innovation which was taking place in the West.
It undoubtedly helps that China didn't have anything resembling a "dark age" either. Western civilization had the Bronze Age collapse, and then the fall of Rome. China had warring states periods where the empire wasn't unified, but there was never a general regression of knowledge, infrastructure, or technology that lasted more than a few generations.
I think the advent of a meritocratic civil service helped a great deal at once. It was a constant with China from the Han Dynasty onward. It ensured that there was great continuity in terms of culture and governance even when the dynasties changed over (or even when foreign invaders took over).
Geography also helped. Northern and Central China - where the core of the Chinese polity formed - is a mostly flat plain. Once there was great cultural-linguistic unity across China, this allowed for new innovations to be transmitted across the state very rapidly. Unfortunately starting in 1500 it was arguably more of a hindrance, because China's lack of nearby competitors meant it focused on slow improvements to maintain social stability rather than the wild innovation which was taking place in the West.
Wasnt there a huge cultural, economic and technologic decline in China following the Mongol invasions which took until the 1700s to finally get fixed? People often claim that Song was on the verge of an industrial revolution when it fell.
But "Marco Polo" didn't go to India. The European public's fascination (such as it was at the time) was focused on China due to Trade.
I'm sure the Mongol invasions hurt northern China tremendously in the short term. But the Yuan Dynasty pretty quickly worked to restore things to something like the old status quo. China under the Mongols was much more outward focused than China was before or after as well, which allowed for the transmission of ideas from Europe and the Muslim world into China. For example, Muslim astronomy moved into China during this period, as did the compass. This was also the period where gunpowder was transmitted to the west.
China's stagnation relative to the west began more in earnest during the Ming Dynasty, IMO.
But Han China had the compass, paper, seed drills, blast furnaces, water wheels, and water-powered trip hammers at the time, putting them far ahead of the Roman Empire technologically.
Vasco da Gama did, and the Indian cotton trade (plus some other things like indigo, wootz steel, and later especially saltpeter) was as valuable as any trade with China.
But why didn't they restore the Arabic world's learning and prosperity?
Because we can't talk about "the Mongols" as some monolithic force. Genghis Khan originally intended to genocide the population of North China in order to turn the farmland into pasture for Mongol horses. His advisers convinced him that "tax farming" was more lucrative. Expansion under Ogedei into China was helped because at the time much of north China was ruled by the Jin dynasty, which was a foreign (Manchu, more less) dynasty themselves, and hated by a large portion of the Han ruling class, who defected to the Mongols. Later Kublai Khan accepted the Mandate of Heaven, effectively making his state into a Chinese successor state rather than a bunch of pirates who occupied half of China. As time went on, ethnic Chinese advisers became more and more central, and the lack of disruption of the Civil Service meant the underpinnings of the state remained unbroken.
Things were different in the Middle East. Invasions there came several decades later under different leadership - what became the Illkhanate. Persia and Baghdad were ravaged by the Mongol invasions. Unlike the Golden Horde and Chagati Khanate, the Illkhanate held out from embracing Islam until roughly 1300. Pretty soon thereafter the Black Plague happened (which China didn't have to deal with). Then a bit later you have Timur - who was a butcher, responsible for the death of about 5% of the global population. Basically he singlehandedly destroyed any potential for Baghdad or Damascus to recover as cosmopolitan global cities.
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kholieken
Banned
I think stagnation is bullshit, Britain Industrial Revolution which push Great Divergence to big factor. Without Industrial Revolution, China and India would sooner or later improve again.
And about Mongols, I think their effect is exaggerated. 1.Mongols overrun civilizations already in decline (at minimum militarily), 2. They coincided with spread of Black Death (which become endemic and devastate long after Mongols gone), 3. Middle East had problem with climate and soil salinization.
And about Mongols, I think their effect is exaggerated. 1.Mongols overrun civilizations already in decline (at minimum militarily), 2. They coincided with spread of Black Death (which become endemic and devastate long after Mongols gone), 3. Middle East had problem with climate and soil salinization.
They had the highest 'effective population density', thanks to the productivity of the land and the development of infrastructure, which gave them something to develop; and they had some of the best 'natural barriers', thanks to the Gobi desert, the Himalayas, and the jungles of Southeast Asia, which gave them the space and time to develop.
It should be noted that the Ming Dynasty after the Columbian interchange was a really odd place. On one hand, trade with Spain was causing its economy to collapse, because Spain paid for Chinese goods via silver, which was causing dramatic levels of inflation in China, wrecking the economy. At the same time, introduction of New World crops (most notably sweet potatoes, but also corn and potatoes) was allowing for intensive cultivation of the less wet hillsides in South China for the first time, leading to a decline in famine and a massive boost in population.
This kind of change was reflected across the whole planet. Africa had it's own agricultural revolution thanks to American crops. Europeans were the brokers of this change, thanks to a few developments, ocean-going ships and gunpowder most famously, and so they ended up on top.
Louyan
Banned
Plus two vast continents of whom the occupants could very well die just from the new arrivals sneezing at them and leaving the whole land as a comparatively easy picking with the luxury of choosing the more accesible and rich parts to take. I think we have trouble to visualize the impact because we have imprind in our minds the different regions, nevermind the continents, as something separate from each other.
If we bring in our minds the western European peninsula in the late 15th century (1400s) it's just a minor theter in the world. One and a half century latter (1650s) a large portion of the american continents is solidly part of this theater and the difference is vast.
As another wrote above it's not that the traditional ecumenes of China India and the Mediterranean-Middle East were stagnated. Western Europe states upped their pace in the centuries of the first wave of colonialism and then surged surprisingly faster with the industrial revolution. On the second one they become for the states of Africa and Asia a Sudden Out of Context situation as much as the Mongols had become under Gengis Khan (and probably as much destructive/bringers of innovation as them).
It rather meaningless to talk about Europe before the rise of the Franks, it was only with them we began to see the development of a common geographic European identity and a disappearance of the geographic Mediterranean identity.
Much of that identity developed because Europe was cut off from the southern Mediterranean by Arab conquest, and the spread of the heavy plough moved the population center of Europe north. But that also explain why northern Europe was less developed, because it was until the early Middle Age a marginal agricultural area with a low population.
But China still moved ahead of the Western Eurasian culture around 1AD and the reason was simple, the development of paper transformed Chinese society, as information became easy to store and spread.
So why did China stagnate? It didn’t, China kept developing and may in fact have developed faster than ever under the Qing Dynasty, but Europe began a transformation to one of the fastest developing region in the Middle Ages, information spread easy thanks to the pan-European intelligentsia the Catholic Church created, the creation of a academic Lingua Franca in Latin, the competitive nature of the European states and the political and legal structures, which ensured that these competitive structures wasn’t united under one central authority. Later as we entered the early modern age we saw the introduction of new crops which again transformed Europe, while the religious strife pushed the development of stronger states and forced a lot of marginal states to increase the size of their economy to stay competitive. As example Denmark could pretty much run its state budget on the Sound Dues in 1500, while in 1815 it only financed 10 % of the Danish state budget and that was after the loss of Norway and the eastern province in the 300 years between.
Much of that identity developed because Europe was cut off from the southern Mediterranean by Arab conquest, and the spread of the heavy plough moved the population center of Europe north. But that also explain why northern Europe was less developed, because it was until the early Middle Age a marginal agricultural area with a low population.
But China still moved ahead of the Western Eurasian culture around 1AD and the reason was simple, the development of paper transformed Chinese society, as information became easy to store and spread.
So why did China stagnate? It didn’t, China kept developing and may in fact have developed faster than ever under the Qing Dynasty, but Europe began a transformation to one of the fastest developing region in the Middle Ages, information spread easy thanks to the pan-European intelligentsia the Catholic Church created, the creation of a academic Lingua Franca in Latin, the competitive nature of the European states and the political and legal structures, which ensured that these competitive structures wasn’t united under one central authority. Later as we entered the early modern age we saw the introduction of new crops which again transformed Europe, while the religious strife pushed the development of stronger states and forced a lot of marginal states to increase the size of their economy to stay competitive. As example Denmark could pretty much run its state budget on the Sound Dues in 1500, while in 1815 it only financed 10 % of the Danish state budget and that was after the loss of Norway and the eastern province in the 300 years between.
To some extent they did. After converting, the Ilkhanate turned Tabriz into a center of Islamic learning and culture. But they fell relatively quickly, as did the Timurids after them. The whole region was pretty chaotic for a while, unlike China unified under the Yuan and then Ming.
Max Sinister
Banned
BD spreading so far became possible because the Mongols had quasi-globalized Eurasia, so it happened after their conquests. No more borders are good for merchants and spreading knowledge, but for bacteria as well.
BlondieBC
Banned
Been looking at some of this stuff. There is evidence of high carbon steel SE of Ankara from 1800 BC.
There is also evidence that High carbon steel was used in weapons by 600 BC. Interestingly enough, the Romans used iron weapons til late in the empire. So the answer to the question may well be that in China the higher tech cities formed the empires and kept the tech. In the west, it may well be the reverse. The higher tech cities fade and what is effectively a bunch of low tech barbarians with a great logistical network and great fighting skill (Romans) founded the lasting empire, and set technology backwards. I guess it would be like instead of the Xin uniting China, it was some barbarian people on horses who were using bronze or iron weapons.
Interesting idea at least.
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Video. link