The Historic Economy of China

[The Lawspeaker]

This is China. The second largest economy in the world, home to the largest population in the world and the most aggressive economic expansion in modern history. Most people watching this video now would have seen china go from a collection of mostly peasant farmers into the economic powerhouse it is today within their lifetimes. The economic development of China has among other things also contributed heavily to the massive drop in absolute global poverty we have seen today. Modern day China is so massive and influential that a rundown of its economy will not fit into a single video so just like the previous video’s on the united states we will be breaking it down into a video series with a particular focus per video.

References -

• Nee, V., 1992. Organizational dynamics of market transition: hybrid forms, property rights, and mixed economy in China. Administrative science quarterly
• Chai, J.C., 1998. China: Transition to a market economy. OUP Catalogue
• The annual data of China's GDP published on China NBS: National data – annual – national accounts – Cross Domestic Product Archived 14 June 2018
• Chi-Yun, C.H.E.N., 2005. Han Dynasty China: Economy, Society, and State Power--A Review of Cho-yun Hsu, Han Agriculture: The Formation of Early Chinese Agrarian Economy Cheung, Y.W., Lai, K.S. and Bergman, M., 2004. Dissecting the PPP puzzle: the unconventional roles of nominal exchange rate and price adjustments. Journal of International Economics
• Schurmann, F., 1973. Ideology and organization in communist China. Univ of California Press Chang, J.K., 1969. Industrial Development in Pre-Communist China: A Quantitative Analysis. Aldine Publishing Company

"There were decades in Chinese history when the rate of recorded peasant uprisings was roughly 1.8 per hour (!). What’s more, such uprisings were frequently successful. Most of the most famous Chinese dynasties that were not the product of barbarian invasion (the Yuan or Qing) were originally peasant insurrections (the Han, Tang, Sung, and Ming). In no other part of the world do we see anything like this. As a result, Chinese statecraft ultimately came down to funneling enough resources to the cities to feed the urban population and keep the nomads at bay, without causing a notoriously contumacious rural population to rise up in arms. The official Confucian ideology of patriarchal authority, equal opportunity, promotion of agriculture, light taxes, and careful government control of merchants seemed expressly designed to appeal to the interests and sensibilities of a (potentially rebellious) rural patriarch." From Graeber his book Debt. In the notes: "According to Parsons, during the period 1629–44, there were as many as 234,185 insurrections in China, averaging 43 events per day, or 1.8 outbreaks per hour” (Deng 1999:220)"

[The Lawspeaker]

China was once the wealthiest in the world and now it was struggling to feed itself, it was these kind of conditions that gave rise to the political system that would go on to define china in the later half of the twentieth century. The nation boasted this wealth for a majority of the last millennia only ever trading places with India, another nation that flies under the radar in recorded history. It even achieved and maintained a level of wealth beyond the typical colonial powers like England, France and the Netherlands that we typically associate with world domination in this period and it did it through good old fashioned grunt. In this video we explore how it all went wrong in the 20th century.

References:
Nee, V., 1992. Organizational dynamics of market transition: hybrid forms, property rights, and mixed economy in China. Administrative science quarterly
Chai, J.C., 1998. China: Transition to a market economy. OUP Catalogue The annual data of China's GDP published on China NBS: National data – annual – national accounts – Cross Domestic Product Archived 14 June 2018
Chi-Yun, C.H.E.N., 2005. Han Dynasty China: Economy, Society, and State Power--A Review of Cho-yun Hsu, Han Agriculture: The Formation of Early Chinese Agrarian Economy
Cheung, Y.W., Lai, K.S. and Bergman, M., 2004. Dissecting the PPP puzzle: the unconventional roles of nominal exchange rate and price adjustments. Journal of International Economics
Schurmann, F., 1973. Ideology and organization in communist China. Univ of California Press
Chang, J.K., 1969. Industrial Development in Pre-Communist China: A Quantitative Analysis. Aldine Publishing Company
Peng, X., 1987. of the Great Leap Forward in China’s Provinces. Population and development review
Li, W. and Yang, D.T., 2005. The great leap forward: Anatomy of a central planning disaster. Journal of Political Economy
Bachman, D. and Bachman, D.M., 2006. Bureaucracy, economy, and leadership in China: The institutional origins of the Great Leap Forward. Cambridge University Press Chen, Y., 2009. Cold War competition and food production in China, 1957-1962. Agricultural history

[The Lawspeaker]

Yes, modern China has come along way from where we left it on the previous video in this series. It is now the second largest economy in the world and it looks poised to reclaim the title of the worlds largest economy within the next century. Which is a convenient segway to note that this video is the final video in a three part series on the economy of China. Here we will be exploring modern day China and what transformed it from a half crippled failed state into the economic superpower we know today. If you haven’t already seen the first two video’s in this series I would encourage you to watch those as well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in order but it is important to understand that China was once the world most powerful economy, then it wasn’t and now it may be all over again.

References
Nee, V., 1992. Organizational dynamics of market transition: hybrid forms, property rights, and mixed economy in China. Administrative science quarterly
Chai, J.C., 1998. China: Transition to a market economy. OUP Catalogue
The annual data of China's GDP published on China NBS: National data – annual – national accounts – Cross Domestic Product Archived 14 June 2018
Chi-Yun, C.H.E.N., 2005. Han Dynasty China: Economy, Society, and State Power--A Review of Cho-yun Hsu, Han Agriculture: The Formation of Early Chinese Agrarian Economy
Cheung, Y.W., Lai, K.S. and Bergman, M., 2004. Dissecting the PPP puzzle: the unconventional roles of nominal exchange rate and price adjustments. Journal of International Economics
Schurmann, F., 1973. Ideology and organization in communist China. Univ of California Press
Chang, J.K., 1969. Industrial Development in Pre-Communist China: A Quantitative Analysis. Aldine Publishing Company Peng, X., 1987. of the Great Leap Forward in China’s Provinces. Population and development review
Li, W. and Yang, D.T., 2005. The great leap forward: Anatomy of a central planning disaster. Journal of Political Economy
Bachman, D. and Bachman, D.M., 2006. Bureaucracy, economy, and leadership in China: The institutional origins of the Great Leap Forward. Cambridge University Press
Chen, Y., 2009. Cold War competition and food production in China, 1957-1962. Agricultural history
Mastel, G., 2016. The Rise of the Chinese Economy: The Middle Kingdom Emerges. Routledge.