Introduction

China is among the one of the oldest worlds incessant civilizations. The past of China was traced in traditional chronological records shows for more than 5000 years. China had a large population on the east end of the Eurasian landmass, just as Europe had on the west end. China manufactured much, invented new technologies, had high levels of literacy, administered exams for civil servants, and had a national market. China had a single government controlling a huge territory for two thousand years. The Chinese invented many important tools but did not apply them economically, such as gun powder (Thorp, 2002) argues that in 1300, China was the site of dramatic technological creativity and yet lost that creativity after this.

Discussion

In the nineteenth century, European traders forced the Quin Dynasty (Manchu China, 1644-1911) to open to trade, forcing them to take European imports, especially opium. European merchants forced their way into ports such as Shanghai, which became an international city. The British took control of Hong Kong. Chinese economic growth stagnated in the nineteenth century. The Chinese did not react to the European challenge as the Japanese did; they did not adopt European technology. They exported tea and silk and imported British cotton goods, providing a market second in size only to British India.

The Republic of China, formed in 1912, ended two thousand years of imperial rule and started the early stages of industrialization. This was interrupted by the Japanese invasion in the 1930s and the Chinese Communist takeover in 1949. Communist central planning with 5-year plans led to disasters in agriculture and to forced attempts at industrialization. However, through public investment in health and education, there was an impressive increase in the life expectancy of the Chinese people, a rise in literacy rates, and a decline of the proportion of the population ...